Suddenly A Ringtail
by Nerd of Camelot
Summary: A girl is taken from her home and put right smack into the Sly Cooper universe... And as Sly's great, great granddaughter, no less! She must go through many trials to prove her worth as a Cooper, but when she does, she'll have earned her rings! T for slight swearing and reference to violence. COMPLETE.
1. Prologue: Snatched

**A/N: My first multi-chapter story. Not sure how it will go, but I'm hoping I'll finish it. I actually started it a few days before I got this account, and I'm already on chapter 3 and still writing, so I think I might actually finish this one!**

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Prologue: Snatched

I honestly have no idea what happened, even now. I was just sitting down on my couch, on the cushion my dad claimed as his, playing Sly 3, just because I felt like it. My copy of the game liked to glitch up, so it was no surprise to me when it did so. After a moment I sighed, got up, and walked across the short expanse of my living room to the TV, kneeling to get at my old PS2. Just as I reached out to turn it off and restart it, everything suddenly went black.

When I opened my eyes, I didn't recognize anything at all. The ceiling above me was cracked and covered in water stains, and the bed I was on _most certainly_ was not mine. I slept on an old cot—by _choice_—and my ceiling was well maintained with a mural of the night sky painted on it. I sat up slowly, trying to gauge where I was, but I had definitely never been wherever this was before.

"I think she's waking up." Someone said.

"How are you feelin', hon?" Another asked, suddenly appearing in front of me. It was a kindly looking old female mouse.

"Uh, okay, I guess. Where am I?" I asked.

"The Happy Camper orphanage. Someone brought you here unconscious last night and asked us to take care of you. He only told us your last name was Cooper. Who are you, girly?" The first voice said. She was a younger, definitely not as kindly mouse.

I was a Cooper? What? I couldn't mask my confusion, so I decided to play it off as amnesia. The Happy Camper orphanage was a place in the Sly Cooper universe, and I was a Cooper now, so... I looked down at myself, managing not to shriek when I realized I was a raccoon.

"Um... I don't really know. I mean, I'm pretty sure that my first name is Sophie, but I don't know anything about being a Cooper or the Happy Camper orphanage... Or anybody who could've brought me here." I said, making sure to look extra confused.

Both of them exchanged a look.

"He said it could be possible you had amnesia. Something about a gang attacking your home and knocking you unconscious." The younger woman said slowly. "Do you know anything about that?"

"A gang?" I asked, now thoroughly confused, "...I, uh... yeah, I think I probably have amnesia."

They both nodded.

"Okay, then, go ahead and rest. Well bring you up some food soon. Tell us if you remember anything." The older woman said.

The younger smiled at me a bit, seeming to realize I wasn't lying to them. I was, actually, but I didn't know enough about what was going on to let on that I was. I sat in one place for a while before getting up and examining the room. There was a bookshelf, but it only had a few books on it. None of them looked too interesting. With a start, I remembered that I'd had my book bag strapped to my shoulder and began looking around wildly for it.

The mice had put it next to the bag, and I immediately opened it. I knew I was a raccoon, but I wanted to see my face. My mirror proved to still be in my binder where I'd left it. I was a raccoon with a thick mop of shaggy black hair falling down on my shoulders. I now understood why Carmelita always braided hers. It was heavy, that much I had known beforehand. I went through my things a bit more, noticing some of the things, like my math book, were more suited for a video game counterpart. They were much less difficult, and some of them, like my sketchbook, stayed exactly the same.

The mice returned right as I dug out the book I'd recently been reading. I turned to the page I'd been on, pretending to be oblivious to them before frowning deeply, taking out the bookmarks, and turning to the first page of the book.

"This could be extremely annoying. I was apparently really far along in this book..." I muttered.

The older mouse chuckled lightly, "We've brought you dinner... Did you say your name was Sophie?"

I nodded. I held up one of the bookmarks in the book, which proclaimed "Sophie Angelo Cooper" in bright red ink. Although it had said "Sophie Angelo Caldicot" when I'd last put it in the book. Tweaks like that saved my life—metaphorically speaking—many times. Most of the time I lied my way out of it anyway, like the amnesia thing. She put a bowl of soup down on the table next to the futon, smiling kindly, before leaving with the younger one again.

I put the book down, placing my bookmarks where they'd originally been, and slowly ate the soup. I mulled over the turn of events that led me to my current situation, and wondered what could've possibly caused me to come into the Sly Cooper world. After a few moments, I gave up trying to figure it out and laid down, finished with my meal.

"Hm... Looks like I've been snatched."

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**A/N: So? How is it? Also, started writing this before "A Thief's Folly", obviously. That one wouldn't have gotten uploaded if I didn't have the first chapter of this already written... I was gonna wait longer, but I decided to go ahead and get it up.**


	2. Flushed Out

**A/N: Here's chapter 1! Hope you enjoy!**

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Chapter 1: Flushed Out

For the next few days, the mice would ask me if I remembered anything, and I'd always make sure I looked upset and said, "No, nothing helpful. Sorry."

They'd always smile and say, "That's okay, hon. You don't have to remember anything."

After a while, I just stopped caring about the past I'd apparently had here. If I was stuck in the orphanage, honestly, what could go wrong?

A lot of things, as it turned out, but I'll get to that bit in a moment.

Anyway, when I once again went through my bag about a week after I arrived, I found something I hadn't expected. True, I honestly should have, but really, when you suddenly arrive somewhere without an explanation, would you take the time to consider something from that place popping up in among your stuff?

Inside my binder, right next to my mirror, was the Thievius Raccoonus.

I almost screamed at the sight of it, but managed not to. Instead it came out as a low squeak of surprise.

"Oh my gods..." Was the only thing I could really say.

After a moment of sitting there, gaping like a fish at it, I picked it up and opened it. It really was the Thievius Raccoonus, too, detailing the escapades of almost every Cooper who ever existed. I flipped through it hastily, nearing the end when I saw Bentley's signature on an entry.

"This is the real deal..." I breathed.

After Bentley's signatures ceased, there came a name I hadn't ever heard - '_Jacey_ _Fox_ _Cooper_'. After that was '_Ricky Cooper_, and then '_James_'. But what startled me most was the next name I saw. There was only one entry, but it was enough to set my heart pounding.

The very last signature in the Thievius Raccoonus read, "_Sophia Angelo Cooper._"

Almost simultaneously to my comprehension of the words, a resounding crash shook the building. It rumbled for a moment and then...

I just knew I was done for. The ceiling began to cave, and the screams I could hear told me that others had noticed. Almost before I could think about it, my legs were carrying me out of the room, Thievius Raccoonus tucked under my arm and bookbag draped over my shoulder.

I bounded down the stairs, determined to save my own skin, no matter what. I actually got out the front doors before the building fell down behind me.

As of yet, I had never once been outside the orphanage, but I was willing to wing it. The terrified screams had faded when the building had fallen... or, rather, they had been abruptly cut off. I looked back at the ruins if what had, for some short time, been my home. I felt ever so slightly saddened at the loss of it, but pushed it aside.

I turned away and toward the long stretch of road in front of me. There, running quickly away, was a tall figure draped in black. My eyes narrowed. My feet carried me after the figure almost as quickly as they were moving.

"Hey, you!"

Real tactful, I know.

They stopped and turned to face me. I made sure to look as annoyed as possible, even though the destruction of the orphanage really didn't bother me much. "There a reason you set an orphanage full of kids to collapse?"

"Nope. I was just bored." They replied, pulling back the hood on their head and grinning.

I narrowed my eyes further, "Helluva reason to kill a hundred or so innocent people."

Their grin only grew wider. "Too bad." They shrugged, and then burst into smoke.

I coughed for a moment before it cleared away enough to get a decent breath. I growled and let out a string of vulgar words under my breath, starting down the road again. Eventually, the sun sank beneath the horizon and I stopped on the side of the road.

Of course whoever that was would knock over the orphanage late in the day. Now I was stranded on the side of the road with no sign of a town anywhere nearby. I set about cursing again, this time a bit louder and with more force.

After a while, I calmed and decided to start reading the Thievius Raccoonus. Not like any harm could come of it.

So, flashlight in hand, I began reading.

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**A/N: So? How was it? Review! Adiós mis pequeños amigos!**


	3. Thieving Dreams

**A/N: Yeah... chapter 1 wasn't very good... But considering how little I paid attention and how eager I was to get it up and work on the other chapters, can you blame me? Oh, and just so y'all know, this will be updated rather sporadically, but I'll update it just about every week. Sometimes more often than that, like today! Double update FTW!**

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Chapter 2: Thieving Dreams

_I breathed in deeply, the wind ruffling my fur. I loved this feeling. I was so completely free here above the city, nothing could stop me if I stayed up here on the rooftops. I opened my eyes to take in the image of Paris again._

_Wait... again?_

_The thought flashed past, lost to the beauty of the city. A smile twitched onto my lips._

_"Don't get too distracted, Jacey. We're on a job, remember!"_

_"I know, I know! But Paris is just so beautiful..." My voice wasn't mine at all. "Stop being such a buzz-kill, Damien."_

I groggily opened my eyes again. "Okay...that was trippy... I gotta lay off el churros. Mom, I just had the weirdest dream ever. I was in the Sly Cooper world, and I was Sophie Cooper instead of Sophie Caldicot, and then I was Jacey Cooper with a friend named Damien, and..."

And then I took a look around. I was laying next to the road, just at daybreak. Even though I'd woken up in this world every day for the past week, I'd still thought it was a dream.

"Damn."

I shook myself off and got up, grabbing my stuff and heading on down the road again. I could just tell that I was not going to have fun getting to town. As I continued down the road, a Police car suddenly shot past.

Whoever was driving put on the breaks and backed up to where I'd stopped to watch with a 'WTF' look on my face.

"Hey kid, you know anything 'bout that orphanage up yonder collapsin'?" The officer asked me.

"Yeah. I was staying up there while I tried to get my memory back... I woke up there with complete amnesia about a week ago. The main building went down yesterday while I was walking around outside. I don't know if anybody survived - I was trying to get to the city to get help."

He nodded, "You don't look like you're lying. Take a left when you get to the fork in the road about a mile down. Have a good day...and good luck with your memory."

"Thanks." I nodded back and continued on my way, as did he.

When I got to the fork, the right-hand sign said, "Cooper farm" and the left "To Paris." A little suspiciously, I turned onto the right-hand road instead of the left. Maybe I could find answers at this farm. Or, if not, a base of operations for the time being, until I found a way home or figured out why I was here.

The road to the farm was long and winding, much like the one I had just walked down, but surrounded by trees as well. It was a rather idyllic setting, really. I found myself relaxing for what was probably the first time since I'd arrived here.

Eventually I reached a set of gates, old and rustic with 'Private Property' and 'No Trespassing' signs hung in a couple places. But most prominent was the hand-painted sign that said, "Cooper Farm."

The gate opened with some small effort, swinging inward with a loud screech. It was obvious enough that no one had been here in a while. I slowly made my way across the grounds, closing the gate behind me, flinching at the repeated squeal of protest it gave.

The farmhouse that sat near the middle of the property was quaint, if a little decrepit. Nearby was a large pile of thankfully not rotted wood that I could use for renovation if needed. I opened the front door hoping and praying that this place didn't stink like death. The only Coooers I knew of who lived anywhere near Paris on a farm had been Sly's parents and, well... you get it.

It didn't, thankfully. It actually smeled quite plesant, like apple cider and fresh-cut mahoghany. If the state of the place and the obvious disuse hadn't tipped me off, I'd have thought someone lived there.

The only evidence that this was Sly's childhood home, the only evidence of what had happened so long ago was the blood splatter on the walls. And even that was so

faded and dry it didn't quite look like it was there

I spent almost the whole day scrubbing the walls down and then repainting them with some paint I found in the barn. By nightfall I had most of the stuff fixed up enough that it was suitable.

I slept outside again that night, letting the paint dry inside.

••••••••••••

_The view was still astounding, even now, so long after my first look at it. I smiled._

_"Honestly, Jacey, every time we have a mission in Paris, you stand on the rooftops for long periods of time staring out at the city... What the heck is so interesting about it?"_

_"You're being a buzz-kill again, Damien." I said, amused, "But I guess it's just the knowledge that this place has been here for a long time, pretty much unchanged, and it's not gonna change, ever. Something about that is just... Captivating. That and the sunrise is **very** pretty here in Paris."**  
**_

_"I still don't understand, but at least I have a chance of it now."_

I woke up shivering. "Man, I have _got _to find a blanket or something... and a bed while I'm at it."

I shook myself off and headed toward the house, "That paint had better be dry by now."

And it was, thankfully. I set about checking all the rooms for any damages, but all that I found was the badly reconcealed safe the Thievius Raccoonus had been in before the Fiendish Five had found it. I eventually stumbled upon Sly's room too, and I nearly cried when I saw some of his childhood doodles. I did giggle at a lot of them, though. There was even one detailing his father as a superhero with the police chasing him decked out with devil horns and spiked tails.

I decided I'd leave his room as it was for the moment, and set about turning the very back room on the first floor into a headquarters of sorts. That wasn't really too hard, since all I had to do was hook up my laptop, set up some maps I found in Sly's dad's old office.

With all that done, I set about reading the Thievius Raccoonus again. I also ventured out into the fields inside the fences to practice some of the moves, but with no one to tell me I was doing them right, I eventually gave up and headed back inside to continue reading. I got to Sly's first entry by the time the sun set and I decided to go to bed.

Since the headquarters only really took up about half of the room, I strung a curtain through the middle and set up my temporary bedroom.

I didn't dream.

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**A/N: So? How was it? Review! btw, Jacey is a girl, just so you know. Also, I don't actually know where Sly's parents' farm is located, but something was just so funny about making it just down the road from the orphanage Sly got put in. I'm horrible, I know...**


	4. Crazy

**A/N: Man I really need to find something better to do while I'm sick... Third chapter for today! I've already got, like, 9 written, so...yeah. Enjoy!**

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Chapter 3: Crazy

My lack of enthusiasm for waking up in the morning made me realize I probably wasn't sleeping on a futon or on the ground outside, so I hesitantly opened my eyes, only to see the blue curtain I'd strung up filtering only some light into my half of the room.

I yawned hugely and got up. Regardless of whether I wanted to or not, of course. I still had work to do, like dragging a bed or something into my half of the room instead of the nest of blankets I'd made the night before. Absently, I grabbed my tablet, a very expensive item that I kept hidden most of the time, and flicked through my music until I settled on a random song and put the device in my pocket.

The music echoed eerily in the fields outside, bouncing back from odd angles and reaching my ears at several different times, pitches, and even speeds. The first thing I did was oil the gates until they swung open without a sound or any resistance whatsoever. I couldn't stand that screeching.

Rather upbeatly for someone who wasn't even in their world anymore, I worked on everything I could find a problem with until the farm was in pristine condition again.

There was just one problem - I didn't have any supplies, and all that hard work was starting to drain my pretty much boundless energy. I have to have food of some sort to keep all this awesome from running out, you know.

I ignored the growing hunger, though, and read more of the Thievius Raccoonus. I had to stop around the middle of Jacey Fox Cooper's writings, though, as the sun began to set.

I went to bed with only the thought, _This is crazy._

••••••••••••

My stomach is what woke me in the morning. "Oh gods, I hate my life..."

I rolled of the bed I'd snatched out of one of the spare rooms and, grabbing only the Thievius Raccoonus, set out to head for town. I used the trees along the way to practice the rail walk and rail grind, and, riskily, the ninja spire jump as well. By the time I reached the fork in the road again, I was no rookie with those three moves.

Sly would've been proud.

The officer, to my surprise, was waiting for me, an amused expression on his face, "You're a Cooper, aren't ya?"

"Yeah, but I don't know much about myself still."

He smiled softly at me, "My great aunt was Carmelita Montoya Fox. She'd be your great, great grandmother. Tell me, you got that Thievius Raccoonus thingamajig?"

I nodded, "Yeah. Just got into Jacey's escapades."

He laughed, "Ah, aunt Jacey. Now there was a fine thief!" He shook his head, a bright smile on his face, "Come on, I'm sure wherever you've been the past couple days didn't have any food... and I can teach ya some tricks I learned from Sly and Jacey when I was cub later."

I grinned and hopped right into the cruiser. "Sounds great. I haven't eaten since lunch on the day the orphanage went down. Did anybody get outta there alive other than me?"

"Yeah. A hawk and a wolf. Both of 'em are around 14." He shook his head sadly, "Been at that orphanage since they was little."

"Ouch." He nodded in agreement.

The rest of the ride to town went on in silence. But it wasn't awkward, it was actually pretty comfortable. I pulled the Thievius Raccoonus out and began reading again, relaxing into the seat.

"How do I know you're not gonna just feed me and then put me in jail for being related to thr biggest band of thieves in history?" I asked absently.

"Cause I'd have to arrest myself if I did that. We're cousins, so I'm related to them too."

I nodded, "M'kay." I paused, "What's your name?"

"Henry Frost. Yours?"

"Sophie."

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**A/N: So? How was it? Review!**

**Family Tree!**

**Sly + Carmelita= Jacey Fox Cooper (thief) and Zephyr Fox Cooper (demolitions ****expert)**

**Jacey + Damien (brains) = Ricky Cooper (thief)**

**Ricky + Lily (telekinetic) = James Cooper (thief), Kisara Cooper (brains), and Ben Cooper (brawn)**

**James + Charity (gymnist) = Sophia Angelo Cooper (thief)**

**Zephyr + Vallen Frost (telekinetic) = Henry (cop/part-time thief)**

**Kisara + Jake Perry (parkour expert) = Beth Perry**

**Ben + Selena (locksmith) = Chelsey Cooper**


	5. Of Family Bonding

**A/N: I'm on a roll today! *looks down and finds herself standing on a gravy covered bread with Sophie***

**Sophie: You should really talk to somebody about this problem of yours... first the talking appliances and now this...**

**:s Shut up!**

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Chapter 4: Of Family Bonding...

After an admittedly large breakfast and some grocery shopping, Henry took me to his house. It was a secluded place at the edge of town surrounded by privacy fence. And it was perfect for training.

"Now, these moves are pretty dang difficult. I'll skip the rail moves and the ninja spire jump, since you've already got those down pat, but I think we should start with...invisibility." He grinned at me. "Think you can handle it?"

"Bring it!"

Boy did I regret those words by noon. I regretted them fiercely. I was sweating buckets by the time we stopped training. Invisibility, moving while invisible, some pretty hardcore parkouring, slowing down time, speeding up time... we stopped on that one, since I was panting by the third try.

"Damn, you're good!" He said, "Took me forever to figure out how to move while invisible... oh, and, if a guard has already seen you, it won't work. I think mom tried to figure out a way to change that, but unless aunt Jacey put it in that Thievius Raccoonus of yours, she never did."

I took said book seemingly out of nowhere, flipping through the pages briefly before showing him a page detailing how to turn invisible while in full view of a guard. I'd read it on the way here, but he could use the information too.

He looked so thrilled to see it, too. "Awesome."

After we both practiced it for a while, he decided it was about time I went home. He loaded me into his cruiser, and we were off. Still breathing hard, I managed to ask, "So, who was my dad? Do you know?"

He nodded. "Yeah. Your dad was James. He was a fine thief, not his grandmother, for sure, but very skilled."

"And my mom?"

"Charity Dells. She was a locksmith. Helped him learn how to pick locks when they were little."

"Cute." I managed to smirk, "Are they...?"

"We don't know. They've been MIA for years."

We fell quiet again. "So, those orphans... the hawk and the wolf... do you know where they are?"

"Yeah, why?"

"I'd like to meet them... maybe get a start on my team."

He grinned, "Yep, you're a Cooper all right. You think just like Sly."

He made an extremely sharp left all of a sudden, almost knocking me into the passenger side window. "Nice driving."

"I learned from Murray, what'd you expect?"

I chuckled, "Good point."

Man, having the Thievius Raccoonus and having read almost all of it came in handy in those sort of situations. My knowledge of everyone would've been extremely creepy otherwise. Don't tell me you forgot about my being from the real world already!

He slowed at the gates, looking considerably saddened. I suppose it was because we had to part ways so soon after meeting.

"Say, could you come by with those two tomorrow? I've almost got the place fixed up enough for visitors."

A spark lit up in his eyes again, "Sure thing!"

For being old enough to be my granddaddy, he sure was peppy. I grabbed my groceries from his back seat and headed into the farm. Waving, he drove away.

I smiled to myself as I walked across the grounds toward the house that had so quickly become my own. Things weren't so bad here.

"You do know that there'll be a huge price to pay for staying here, right?" A voice asked suddenly.

Leaning against the fence was a white robed woman. Her face was set into a stern frown.

"Huh?"

"This world is not yours. If you choose to stay, when given the choice, you will lose everything you knew before." She frowned even deeper, "Make your choice carefully when the time comes, Sophia Angelo Caldicot."

And then she was gone. No puff of smoke, nothing. Just, there and then not.

"Okay... adding 'freaky lady in white' to my 'crazy people I meet out of nowhere' list. Right under that hobo I met in London last spring." I shivered.

I continued into the house in an attempt to forget what had just happened. After a moment, the moment completely disappeared from my mind. I organized my groceries and then sat down to read more of the Thievius Raccoonus. When the sun began to set, I lit a lantern Henry had given me and just continued on

Eventually, yawning, I made my way to the half a room that served as my sleeping quarters. I blew out the flame in the lantern and almost immediately fell asleep.

_"Honestly, Bentley, I know what I'm doing!" I said, rather annoyed. "You'd think I never learned anything from my dad with the way you two freak out."_

_"You know we're just worried about you, Jacey. If you're **anything** like Sly, you'll get into more trouble than you need to to get to that statue." Bentley said._

_"Ah, lay off her, Bentley. The more you nag her, the more trouble she gets into to spite you." Damien calmly told him. "Just get the statue, dear, so Bentley will stop fretting."_


	6. And Paradoxical Letters

**A/N: Okay, last one for today.**

**Sophie: You were right. Your updates _are_ sporadic.**

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Chapter 5: ...And Paradoxacal Letters

In the morning, I rushed about, putting things in their proper places, rearranging furniture... The sort of thing most extremely awkward people do when they're recieving houseguests they don't really know.

After a quick check, I realized I had about one entry from my supposed father, James, left in the Thievius Raccoonus. I read it to pass the time, only to realize that it only wasted about three minutes of my time. Then was the very last entry, the one I had been freaking over when the orphanage collapsed and/or blew up.

_Dear Sophie,_

_As soon as you have read this letter, get rid of it. It could complicate things._

_I won't live long enough to live out the Cooper Legacy, so I looked for the most suitable person I could to do it for me. I'm sorry I dragged you into this, but you were the perfect person for it! Our interests are exactly the same, we're the same age - hell, we were born at the exact same time on the exact same day in the same year! And our names... I'm Sophia Angelo Cooper, and you're Sophia Angelo Caldicot. I think this was meant to happen._

_Again, I'm sorry I screwed up your life._

_-Sophia Angelo Cooper_


	7. Voices, Partners, and crazy déjà vu

**A/N: At this rate, I'll be finished with this story by next week. Yeesh. The Plot Bunny be whack, yo.**

***Plot bunny appears out of nowhere looking adorable* *Plot bunny grins evilly and jumps onto Allie's shoulder, whispering like a conspiracy theorist***

**Sophie: While they're busy over there *clears throat softly* Miss my-imagination-likes-to-come-to-life over there doesn't own Sly Cooper. She does, however, own all OCs present in this story. _Unfortunately for us..._**

**Sophie Cooper: So, she killed me off to make you the main character?**

**Sophie Caldicot: Pretty much.**

**Both: *shrug* Onto the chapter!**

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Chapter 6: Voices, partners, and crazy dêja vû.

After reading that letter a few times, I ripped it out of the Thievius Raccoonus. I threw it into my bag. She'd said to get rid of that letter, but I wanted to keep it.

"...y_ou'll lose everything you knew before..."_

Maybe, if I chose to stay, I could scribble a note on the page somewhere saying not to forget, or something. But, since this Sophie, the _real _Sophie Cooper, was apparently dead, what choice did I really have? Even if I lost my memories of my world, wouldn't it be worth it to live a life someone else didn't get to? A life that that someone wanted me to live?

A loud, echoing honk broke me from my thoughts. I tucked away the Thievius Raccoonus and headed out the door and across the way to open the gate for Henry, who had paused there with a trailer full of tarp covered stuff attatched to the back of his cruiser.

He drove calmly in and parked in front of the house. I hitched a ride on his trailer and then moved to open the door for them.

"Come on in," I invited, not even looking at the two orphans I knew he had with him.

I heard two sets of shuffling footsteps behind me, and the steady rhythm of Henry's strides. When I finally turned to look at them, the jaws of the two orphans dropped.

"S-sophie? Sophie... Cooper?" They asked in unison.

"That's my name, but... If I knew you, I'm sorry to say I've forgotten who you are. I've got this super annoying case of amnesia..."

The hawk's face visibally fell, and the wolf looked a little disappointed.

"Then why did you want to see us?" The hawk asked despondently.

"Well, every great thief needs an equally good team to back them up, and..." I trailed off, confused. I was getting a major sense of deja vu.

"And...?" The wolf prompted.

"And I get the feeling you've already heard that speech from me."

The hawk smiled a little, "We have." She said.

"Well, damn, look at that! Just havin' you guys around is makin' me remember stuff!"

Suddenly a voice popped up in the back of my head, "The hawk's name is Lindsey, and the wolf is Rudy."

I took it in stride. "Going out on a limb here, but... Lizzy and Rusty? Wait, no, I can just tell that's not right... Lucy and Ray? No..." I frowned. "Well, at least I know your name starts with an L and yours starts with an R."

"Lindsey." the hawk giggled.

"Rudy." the wolf added.

"I was close!" I said in triumph.

"Close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades." Henry replied. "You're lucky you have a good reason not to remember their names. Most people get much more offended."

The rest of those next few minutes passed in relative silence before Henry broke it again.

"Oh, by the way, little cuz, I got some stuff for you."

I quirked an eyebrow, "Stuff that happens to be covered in tarps?"

He smiled, "Yeah, that stuff. You didn't peek did you?"

"Slipped my mind. I was too busy practicing my social awkwardness.

All three of them laughed at me.

"Yep, she's definitely our Sophie." Rudy said. "Question, though..."

"Ask away. I can't garuntee a good answer, of course, but hey, what can you do?"

He smiled briefly, then jerked his thumb at Henry. "What's up with the Police escort?"

I raised my eyebrows, "He's my older cousin. Got thieving in his blood, _that_ cop."

"How do you know he wasn't just saying it to get on your good side?" Lindsey asked.

"Cause Jacey Cooper mentions him on occasion later in her entries as her nephew, and Ricky Cooper talks about him relatively often. That, and, he taught me some pretty neat Cooper-Only tricks yesterday."

"But he's not a Cooper!"

"He's got his dad's last name." I defended calmly, "Vallen Frost was the telekinetic in Jacey and her sister - Henry's mom - Zephyr's gang. Now, I don't know why Henry chose to go into Law Enforcement, but I'm almost certain it had something to do with Carmelita."

He smiled brbriefly, and looked like he was going to say something, but I continued.

"And, well, he's just about the only family I've got left right about now." I shook my head, "Anyway, care to show me this stuff you brought me?" I asked him.

"Sure."

He pulled the assorted tarps off and then threw something small at me.

"_Those_," He said, "are for something I left outside your property. I couldn't pull it in with the cruiser with the trailer attatched, so I'll go get it."

He unhooked the trailer, leaving me with a few electrical appliances, a few buckets of paint, and Lindsey and Rudy. I opened my hand to look at what Henry had thrown me. Keys.

I furrowed my eyebrows. What would he have to pull in here with his cruiser that needed keys?

He came back just in time to answer that question, hauling a kind of beat up van behind him. He unhooked it without batting an eyelash at my jaw dropping onto the ground.

"You brought me a van? A beat up van, of course, but it's a van!"

He chuckled, "You had your eye on this van for the longest time... I figured I might as well give it to you now."

He started unloading the assorted appliances from his trailer and hauling them in. "Where's the kitchen?" He asked as he lugged a fridge past me.

"Just let me show you where to put that stuff... I'll hook it all up later."

He nodded and followed me to the kitchen, laundry room, and basically anywhere he had an appliance to put. I even got anTV.

Don't even ask me how a place with no electricity could run them, it just did. The fridge started humming softly when I hooked it up, and the microwave's display lit up. I only raised my eyebrow for a second, but didn't mention it.

For some time afterwards we talked - well, they talked, I sat there with no idea what they were trying to tell me. At least for a few seconds. Then, all of a sudden, I could tell them every word they'd said during whatever event they'd brought up.

It was giving me major memory whiplash.

Eventually, the voice came back, giggling, "Maybe I should take over. Just relax, and I can handle all those memories for you."

So I did, falling away with the feeling that the others wouldn't notice. The details on what was discussed afterwards are a little fuzzy for me. All I know is that when I finally came back from wherever I'd gone, I was standing in the doorway, waving at the others as they drove off.

I blinked in confusion, and luckily they were already out the gates by then. It would've been weird if they could've seen my confused expression.

Eventually I shrugged it off and headed back inside. This was getting kind of lonely, but, oh well. I put some food on to cook and just wandered around the house for a while after I ate.

There weren't any mirrors in the house, I noticed, so I really had no idea what my eyes must've looked like. I knew they were most likely a little sunken in by now, but other than that, I thought they might've changed colors. They were sort of a reddish brown in the real world.

After a while, I remembered the mirror I kept in my binder and got it out. The black fur around my eyes looked ruffled and out of place, and my hair was sticking up on top of my head in places.

All my preparations, and I hadn't bothered to clean myself up. No wonder Rudy had called me 'Spiky' when he was telling me his side of one of the moments. I smiled in amusement, making a mental note to invest in a hairbrush.

My eyes, though, as I had thought, had changed. No longer were they the 'wine' color my mom had gushed over continuously. They were just plain brown now. I pouted.

"Man, my trademark is gone." I said, feigning extreme disappointment. "That blows."

Thoughtfully, I smoothed down my mask-fur a bit before wandering into Sly's parent's bedroom. After a little looking around I frowned deeply.

"Come on... He had to have had some masks around here somewhere." I looked again, still not finding any.

I also checked the safe, the spare bedrooms, and the bathroom and kitchen cabinets. Nothing. Doubtfully, but lacking anywhere else to search, I meandered into Sly's bedroom. There, on his tiny desk, was a small box containing thief masks of assorted colors. Brown, reddish brown, gray, and black.

Without a shred of guilt, I nabbed a black on and tied it on. This way, my mask fur wouldn't get ruffled, and I'd look more professional. I checked my reflection in my small mirror before frowning at my still large hair.

"Damn static electricity." I muttered.

And with that, I untied the mask, pulled my hair out of its pony tail, and made my way to the bathroom. Doubtfully, but faintly certain it would work because of the electric appliances, I turned on the shower.

And thus, I took a long shower and went to bed with my hair in a braid.

I didn't dream.


	8. The Adventure Begins

**A/N: Updates are slowing back down, I'm afraid. I was making a grilled cheese sandwich and completely lost track of time once it was done. *bows* I apologize to my readers for how slow my writing is now. But what you get for waiting is some quality fic.**

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Chapter 7: The Adventure Begins

_A few weeks later..._

I wiped the oil off my face lazily, only really succeeding in smearing it from right under the edge of my mask fur to my ear. "Damn, this van really _was _beat up. All that work just to get it moving...Ah, well. I'm pretty much done working on it 'cept for changing the oil..." I shook my head and got back to work.

The sound of boots on dirt caught my attention, and I looked up to see Henry standing there, his cruiser still parked at the gate. He smiled and handed me a bottle of water.

"Been workin' on that junk heap all month?" He asked.

"It's not a junk heap!" I argued, "It just needs some work... and a new paint job."

He chuckled a bit. "Then it's a good thing I got those bottles of glossy spray paint you wanted, aint it?"

"Dude! You actually got them?" That made me more than a little happy.

He held up the plastic bag in his hand by way of response. I grinned, "Then it's a good thing I got this 'junk heap' up 'n' runnin' again, aint it?" I mocked him.

He looked shocked, "You got that rust bucket working?!"

"Yep. Now stop gaping like a fish and help me cover the tires so I can get this van looking as good as it runs!"

To his credit, he did manage to pick his jaw up off the ground and help me. The base of the van got a very healthy dose of black, and then my custom Cooper Gang stencils in iridescent green and bright blue. It took _hours_ to get it done, but it was _so_ worth it._  
_

And thus, my Cooper Van was complete. That voice, which had helped me make the stencils and given commentary on my work the whole way, sounded giddy when she spoke up again, "Geez, you've done such a good job on this van... oh, it's not what I wanted to do, but it's still great!"

I smiled, an involuntary reaction to her praise. Henry, of course, thought it was because of my satisfaction of having my van the way I wanted it.

"Wanna take it for a spin?" He asked.

"I don't have a liscense, but I'm gonna be breaking the law soon anyway. Might as well start with that." I replied, shrugging.

"Baby steps." He agreed with a smirk.

••••••••••••

My van drove like a dream. Henry was astounded that I'd fixed it up so well. We celebrated over a bottle of champagne.

"What happened to baby steps?"

"Too slow."

I couldn't agree more.

••••••••••••

"Okay, are we clear?" Henry asked.

Lindsey, Rudy, and I nodded. "Crystal."

"Good. Now get going. I can only plan this first one for you."

We nodded again and left the farm house.

"Wait, if he's staying here, how are we supposed to get to town?" Lindsey asked.

I grinned and walked over to the barn, and they followed me curiously.

"Simple, we take the van."

"But isn't your van-" I pulled the tarp off it, "...junk?" Rudy finished uncertainly.

"Hey wait, none of us has a liscense!" Lindsey exclaimed.

I ignored her, "Wanna drive, Rudy?"

He grinned and all but jumped into the driver's seat. I scrambled into the passenger's.

"This is extremely illegal..."

"Lindsey, everything we're doing tonight is extremely illegal. Henry can bail us out for a driving without a liscense charge. You should be more worried about the breaking and entering, trespassing, burglary, theft, and parkour we're about to be doing."

"I was trying not to, Sophie."

"Then just... get on my laptop and make slideshows or something." I said, handing it to her. "But you've gotta get over it some time. We're thieves."

She nodded and pushed her glasses up her beak. "I'll try, but I think every 'brains' gets nervous on the first hit."

Rudy was driving like a bat out of hell toward the city. He was ready for our first job, but I most certainly was not. I mean, sure, I'd been looking forward to it since the moment I found out I was a Cooper, but I wasn't sure I could pull this off without getting caught.

"You'll be fine." That voice spoke up again. "I'm sure of it."

_Thanks._

We pulled up a few blocks away from the museum we were...no, I was about to rob. One thing, that's all I needed to get. It was virtually unguarded, according to Henry, and the museum didn't have any security systems.

All I had to worry about was getting in and back out with the goods without being seen by the guards.

Opening the door of the van and stepping out, I took a deep, steadying breath. I could do this.


	9. Jewel Drop

**A/N: Sorry, had school today. My friend Della wanted me to help her with her science fair project during our computer class, too, so I didn't get much chance to write until I got home... And I have a week's of homework to do over the weekend because I was gone almost all this week. Actually, we didn't have school Monday and I went home in second period on Tuesday... I was only there one day this week, pretty much.**

**In answer to a review I got, no, Sly won't be in this story. This is only the first of at least three stories, and they take place in a series I like to call Ringtail. Sly _m__ight_, though it's not likely, show up in the third one. Honestly, since he's Sophie's great, great grandpa, it's kinda hard to fit him into a story that takes place a long while after he died. **

**...Well, he'll show up in the Jacey dreams, but since those are basically flashbacks, I don't think it counts as him actually being in the story.**

* * *

Chapter 8: Jewel Drop

Careful not to fall, I climbed the building next to us and started toward the museum. Just one artifact, I kept reminding myself. I stopped on the roof of the museum, surveying the area. I calmed myself and turned invisible, sneakily going right past the first guard, my tail just missing his face. He sniffed and grunted loudly, continuing on.

I dropped to the ground, rather noisily if you ask me, and slowly moved along until I got bored and sped up time to move faster. You can only move so slowly while invisible, remember.

There were a few close calls and one time when I was literally close enough to a guard that my breath ruffled his whiskers. Needless to say, I held my breath until he left. The artifact I needed was right there on a pedestal. No glass, no laser traps, and not a guard in sight.

I crept up to it and grabbed it, forgetting for a moment to stay invisible. It left my mind quite completely, in fact, as I looked over the jewel Henry had set us up to get. Almost absently, I put one of my personally designed calling cards in it spot. I smiled and looked for a way out of the room.

A pipe leading up to an open skylight provided this, and I stood on the roof for a moment. Jacey had been right, this place _was _beautiful. Shaking my head, but feeling warm and...at home, I started back across the rooftops and to the van.

Rudy took off almost as soon as I had climbed into the seat.

"Did you get it?" Lindsey asked, sounding rather excited.

"Yeah." I grinned and showed it to her.

She grinned too. "I don't know what I was so worried about." She confessed, "I knew you could pull it off."

We rode the rest of the way back in silence. Almost immediately, Henry ordered us to sell the gem on Thiefnet and get moving as soon as we could so no one would be able to find us. He took Lindsey and Rudy back to wherever they were staying after that was cleared up, wishing me a good night.

I looked over to the mirror I'd put in the entryway, thoughtful. To my shock, though, my reflection was in a completely different pose with a completely different expression.

"Good job, Caldicot." The voice told me, but instead of being in my head, it seemed to come from the mirror.

The other me smirked at my obvious perplexion at this. "I'll explain some other time. I'm super proud of you right now, by the way!"

And the surface of the mirror seemed to ripple for a second before it showed me myself again, but with my extremely confused expression. After a second, I shook my head and walked to the HQ room, muttering, "My life just gets weirder and weirder."

I pawned the gem off easily to a buyer who told me to drop it at the Eiffel Tower at 3:40 that morning. My desktop clock said it was currently 3:10, so I figured I could drop it early and come back and sleep for a couple hours before we left. We'd decided it would be best to get the fudge out of Paris around noon.

So I drove to the Eiffel Tower, hung the jewel in a bag from one of the supports and placed my new calling card on the bag to signify what it was. I hid nearby for a while before a badger came, looking around warily. When he spotted the bag, he snatxhed the jewel out with a satisfied expression before pulling a wad of cash out of his pocket and stuffing it in the bag. He almost immediately ran off.

I snuck out of my hiding place, took the money, and made for home. I collapsed onto bed with a sigh. I was out before my head hit the pillow.


	10. Moving Day

**A/N: Well, since it's the weekend now aand I'm not sick anymore, I'm gonna write some more chapters! Until I fall asleep, that is. They'll be posted as they are written.**

* * *

Chapter 9: Moving Day

"Come on, Sophie! Get up, it's 9 o'clock!"

Muttering to myself, I snuck out into the HQ and sat down in front of my laptop.

"Where are you, anyway?"

My headphones went on, and I started up some music while I began writing up my first entry to the Thievius Raccoonus. Nothing like concinvincing someone you were already up, just not paying attention.

Henry ripped my headphones off my head, scowling. "I could've been someone trying to kill you just now." He stated coldly.

"No once else knows where I live." I pointed out just as coldly. "And be careful with those headphones, dammit, they were expensive!"

He backed off, "Geez, who bit you?"

I frowned at him, "You just nearly damaged my _very pricy_ headphones, and you almost knocked my also _extremely expensive _laptop and tablet off this table, and you're wondering why I'm moody?"

He shifted uncomfortably, which looked kind of funny since I was barely a teenager and he was my elder by at least 30 years. "Well, technology didn't used to matter to ya so much."

"I'm just protective of stuff I own, like any good thief. Doesn't help that I actually paid for this junk.

Henry nodded, "Well, I suggest you pack up anything you wanna take, eat something, and go pick up Rudy and Lindsey. They're waiting up at the ruins of the orphanage."

I decided not to question why he had come to wake me up so early when we didn't have to be on our way until around noon, and he left without another word. I began packing up my few belongings - and as an afterthought, the box of masks from Sly's room -, stuffing them in my schoolbag and leaving the books and such on the coffee table in the living room. As I passed the mirror in the entryway, that differing reflection showed up again.

"You should head to Rajan's hideout. It's one of those weird family traditions for Coopers to finish a job an ancestor started. Sly left a lot of loot when they went after Rajan." She said, then disappeared.

I shrugged it off and got in the van, grabbed a large apple on the way out of the farm gates and munched on it all the way to the orphanage.

Rudy and Lindsey grinned at me when I pulled up and got out.

"There's our Princess of Thieves!" Rudy said, "Where we goin'?"

I tossed the core of the apple across the clearing where the orphanage used to be and shrugged. "Depends on where there's anything good. I'm thinking maybe... oh, I don't know, Rajan's old hideout? There's directions in the Thievius Raccoonus. Sly said they had to leave some pretty good stuff when they went off in search of Rajan."

Rudy nodded, "Then gimme those directions!"

Lindsey just climbed into the back of the van to start setting up her tech. I smiled and took my place in the passenger's seat, watching everything fly by as we left first Paris, then France altogether.

Rudy, though he was driving, was also reading the directions Sly had given.

"How do we know one of your parents, grandparents, or any of the rest of your family hasn't already raided this place?"

"They would've written about it." I replied, watching the scenery outside change. "Finishing something an ancestor started is a very big deal in the Cooper family."

That reflection appeared in the side mirror and smirked at me before disappearing once again. She was sort of creepy, I thought at the time, always appearing and disappearing at random moments. She never really did anything special in the three times I'd seen her so far, just tell me something and then leave.

_She said she'd explain..._

_'Oh yeah, I did, didn't I? Later, I promise. Sort of slipped my mind this morning.'_

I resisted the urge to make a face at her sudden reappearance in my mind, only barely managing. Her laughter at this echoed in my mind for the rest of the day.


	11. The Tiger's Treasure

**A/N: Well, here's the official CHAPTER TEN! Enjoy!**

* * *

Chapter 10: The Tiger's Treasure

It took us a couple days, but we eventually got to India, aand, subsequently Rajan's old 'Ancestral Palace'.

We went in without much of a plan other than 'grab as much loot as you can and if there are people here, tell Sophie so she can do it herself.' And, unfortuneately for this new thief, there _were _people there. Lindsey came back from her first aerial patrol of the area and smirked at me.

"Have fun in there, Sophie. The place is _crawling_ with leftover guards."

I get the feeling that if I'd still been human, I would've gone from a healthy color to dead pale in two seconds. I groaned and leaned against the rock formation next to me, "And, let me guess, they all have a healthy amount of loathing for anything with balck and gray stripes, right?"

She just continued to smirk at me.

"Lovely." I said, resigning myself to my fate. "Well, I guess I should get used to robbing places with a lot of guards and security."

"I got a few moniters set up so I can see where the loot's at. You've gotta grab one piece at a time, as far as I can tell."

"We'll see about that." I said, grabbing a bag and strapping it to my leg. "I'm gonna grab as much of it as possible in one go and go back for the rest of it."

She shrugged to Rudy about it before saying, "Here, take this." And handing me a device she'd been tinkering with the whole way. It was a Binoc-U-Com, although it still needed some work. I took it and she showed me one in the same condition that she would be using so I could find the pieces of loot.

I nodded and made my way into the compound, displeased to see that Lindsey hadn't been kidding about the guards. And, to my _extreme _unhappiness, I saw a wizened old tiger walking out of the palace itself. It was Rajan, I could tell just by looking at him.

"YOU IDIOTS HAD BETTER KEEP ANY THIEVES OUT! I DON'T WANT A REPEAT OF COOPER!" He shouted at the poor guards.

"Oh, damn... This probably wasn't a good idea." I muttered, but followed Lindsey's first holomarker to a piece of loot anyway.

I forewent the invisibility trick as well. If I was going to be a thief, I should at least know how to be sneaky without it. The first piece was easy, and barely guarded. It went into the bag.

The second, I found on the way there, would not be so easy to get. A guard stood watch over it at all times, as far as I could see. Even a sneak attack wouldn't work, because I didn't have a weapon.

_'Turn invisible, sneak up right in front of him, and hit him in the jugular as hard as you can. He **should **go down.'_

_Thanks for the advice._

_'No problem.'_

So, despite being extremely nervous, especially since this would mark the first time I ever attacked a guard, I followed her advice and snuck up in front of the guard while I was invisible. Remembering that this move actually did work - I rendered a kid at school motionless for 10 solid minutes with it and I only really tapped him -, I raised my hand and brought the side of it crashing into the side of his neck.

Almost immediately, he crumpled to the ground with only a low groan. Releasing myself from the invisibility, I snatched up the loot, and, as an afterthought, placed a calling card where it had been. Nothing like spiting an angry spice lord.

"Hey, Lindsey... We got any knives?" I asked over the Binoc-U-Com.

"Yeah, why?"

"I'm gonna need to start carrying one with me. I just had to knock a guard out cold to get to a piece of loot."

"Oh, damn..." She said, "Well, come back with whatever you've got... Maybe pick up some of the easier to get loot on the way, and I'll get you a good knife to use."

I nodded and took off again, snatching a few relatively unguarded trinkets and such until I reached our currently established hideout. I emptied the bag on my thigh into the van as Lindsey carefully picked out a good knife.

"Here. This one should do." She said, handing me a dagger-like long knife with a very slight resemblance to a butcher's knife.

"Thanks." I nodded, taking it.

"Man, I can't believe I'm letting her go out and kill guards with that knife... God have mercy on the poor souls she runs into." I heard her say.

I chuckled but went about heading for another piece of loot. Almost every second, a guard passed through the area it was in. Closer inspection showed it was only two guards entering and exiting at odd intervals. One would walk in and out for a couple minutes, then the other would do the same.

Careful not to give myself away, I tailed one of them as they left, sneaking along until we were far enough away before I got as close as possible and repeated what I'd done with the first guard. He, too, went down with a grunt. But this one wouldn't be waking up any time soon.

I thought for a second about how to finish him off before I remembered something I'd read a long time before. With barely a second thought I drove it into the base of his skull. He fell completely lax.

I repeated this with every guard I encountered as I gathered loot, and I could almost completely ignore the bodies littering the ground. But as soon as I was done and on my way out off the grounds, my stomach twisted in a knot because of guilt and I spilled my guts into the river.

I entered the hideout fully aware that my fur was literally a shade lighter. "Well, the bad news is, Rajan is still alive. The good news? He's old and not likely to be a threat."

"But his grandson might." A new voice said. There, in the entry to our hideout, was a lean young tiger. "That is, if I didn't hate him so much. He'll be having a coniption fit with my dad in the morning over those calling cards, though, so good job on that."

"Who in the hell are you and how did you find us?" Rudy asked.

"I'm Rajan the third." He said with a grimace, "And I followed your friend here. No offence, but the bodies were sort of conspicuous."

I grinned sheepishly, noticing he didn't bring up my barfing into the river. I was thankful for that. "Newbie." I said.

He nodded, "I could tell. I haven't seen your calling cards before, and usually Coopers don't stab their victims."

"I lack the family cane at the moment, so I'm stuck with this." I showed him the knife. "But, anyway, what was this about you hating your grandpa?"

He smirked, "You want me to help you on your heists, don't you?" He asked. I smirked back, "Well, I suppose I _c__ould _work with you... It would probably send my dad into a murderous rage to find me gone... Sure, if it's okay with your friends."

"The more the merrier... and Sophie loves pissing off her targets in any way she can. Especially if she's going to be leaving soon."

A flash of memory took me off guard.

_"Come on, Sophie, let's get going!"_

_"Gimme a sec!"_

_I held up a permanent marker with a grin and wrote on the wall in front of me 'Your breath stinks, Ritchie!' I ran off after Lindsey laughing._

"Sophie?"

I looked up, "What?"

"Did you remember something?" Lindsey asked worriedly.

"Yeah... I was writing 'Your breath stinks, Ritchie!' on a wall in permanent marker."

She laughed, "No doubt that got triggered by the pissing people off remark."

Rajan III looked confused.

"I have a really annoying case of amnesia. Stuff comes back very slowly, and usually it gets triggered by something they say." I explained.

He nodded, "Ah, I see. Well, when do you plan on leaving?"

"Whenever. Probably sometime in the morning."

"Then I will stay here."

I nodded and walked over to a quiet corner of the room and curled up, scribbling away in the Thievius Raccoonus.


	12. Coopers are Romantics as well as Thieves

**Chapta 11. Enjoy. EDIT I actually had this whole chapter written earlier, but when I tried to save it, the internet crapped out and I had to write it all again. I apologize for my lateness.**

* * *

Chapter 11: Coopers are Romantics as well as Thieves

When we left in the morning, Rajan III joined us. I quickly took to calling him Reggie or just Rajan in my head whenever I thought about him. It was just so much easier than Rajan III.

So, anyway, in typical Generation X Cooper Gang style, we had no idea where we wanted to go. Rajan suggested we go to Japan and steal a rare painting they had on display, Lindsey wanted to rob a local _SHELL_ store for their technology, and Rudy just didn't care so long as he got to drive. We did rob the _SHELL_ store while we were leaving, since it was like 4 in the morning.

But we all agreed on Cairo, Egypt when I pointed out that three of the last four owners of the Thievius Raccoonus said it was a good stomping ground for thieves, no matter how experienced. Sly said things there were easy pickings during the Clockwerk parts caper. Jacey mentioned that it wasn't very hard to take things right out from under people's noses. Likewise, my dad went there for his very first heist and got away with more than he went there for because most of it was unguarded.

It sounded like those Egyptians were very trusting.

Anyway, Rajan went into the Cairo Museum with me to scope out possible hits. Due to a rumor that quickly started flying around, we held hands and acted like a couple the whole time. I called him Reggie to his face the first time there, and he called me Soph instead of Cooper.

We picked out three possible targets before we left. We dropped hands before we got to the van and both of us shuddered and wiped them on our pants before sharing a simultaneous apologetic look. We were laughing like maniacs when we got into the van.

We detailed the hits to Lindsey, who set about making plans to steal them. A solid gold ankh, a small stone tablet covered in heiroglyphics, and a crook and flail. While we waited, I kept finding my thoughts wandering back to Rajan.

I kept thinking of how gentle his paw had been when we were holding hands, how soft his fur must've been - I wear gloves, so I couldn't tell -, and how mucho macho he was. He was definitely almost all muscle, and he was most certainly gruff but kind at the same time. He was a jokester, too, and to top it all off, he had been so willing to pretend he was my boyfriend and actually play the part.

All in all, he was perfection with claws, as far as I was concerned. It had barely been a day, and already I was sort of falling for him. Yep, not even on my third heist yet, and I already had a love interest.

We Coopers are a long line of romantics, it seems.

In order to preoccupy myself, I reached out for that voice I'd been hearing now for over two months. _Does now count as "later"?__  
_

_'I suppose.' _The voice said with a chuckle. _'But I'm not sure you want to know.'_

I conjured up the mental image of me standing there with the infamous 'mmhmm' face, hand on my hip.

She laughed, _'Oh all right!'_


	13. Heist 3

**A/N: Here's chapter 12!**

* * *

Chapter 12: Heist #3

Her explanation made sense, I supposed, considering her appearance and attitude. I could only nod noncommittally, though it got me some looks from the others. I didn't dignify their 'is she nuts' expressions with any form of response other than to murmur, "Yes, that might work..." in order to throw them for a loop.

They seemed to realize I was talking to myself and went back to their business.

'_That was good thinking. You shouldn't have nodded, though.'_

_I'm aware of that. Shut up._

_'So, anyway, you probably don't need me to distract you anymore, so I'll just head back to where I usually am.'_

_No, stay. I like having you to talk to._

I got the impression that that made her very happy. We chit-chatted for a while before Lindsey announced she had a plan.

Using the tech we'd stolen from _SHELL_, Lindsey would hack into the security systems and turn off the cameras and such. Then, I would go in with Rajan to grab the loot.

That tablet definitely wasn't going to be easy for me to lift, especially with an ankh and a crook and flail, but Rajan was stronger and he wouldn't be carrying anything else.

Once we were clear on the plan, I decided to catch a quick nap so I could be alert when the actual heist came.

••••••••••••

Lindsey woke me up just before she went with Rudy to go hacking, leaving me in the van with Rajan. For the most part, it was easy to ignore my small, childish crush I had on him. I just concentrated on staying calm about the job ahead. A thief who isn't calm is no thief at all.

When Lindsey came back, she almost immediately sent us out.

"Okay, okay, geez, we're going!" I muttered as she handed me an improved Binoc-U-Com.

Rajan got one too, and we were off. Weaving through the streets side by side, we pulled off some pretty amazing synchronization, especially since it was out first mission together.

The museum guards we encountered didn't stand a chance. I kept my knife sheathed on my hip, and just knocked them out cold using the ever-so-dangerous karate chop to the neck. Rajan just bowled them all over or bashed their heads against the wall. None of them ever once got a chance to call for back up.

The ankh and the crook and flail were easy pickings. I'd brought the sack I'd used in Rajan's lair, and stowed the stuff there so I wouldn't have to carry them. Rajan grabbed the tablet and made off with it before I had the ankh, so I had to get out by myself.

As I was passing an old display in the basement where they'd taken the loot when the sun set, something gold caught my eye. Creeping closer, I just about squealed in delight.

It was a Cooper cane. The display showed Sly and Carmelita, and the small plaque said he'd given them the cane he had always used in his will. Although I respected that, I still needed something other than my ringed tail to signify that I was a Cooper.

As such, I had absolutely no qualms sneaking into the display and grabbing it. I made off with an ankh, some Pharaoh's tools, and a Cooper family heirloom all in one go. I was definitely living up to the Cooper name.

••••••••••••

Lindsey stared at the cane for an hour after I got to the van. Rajan looked surprised to see it, and Rudy just started the van and drove us out of the city. Eventually, I got annoyed at her staring and tossed the crook and flail at her, followed by the ankh. She snapped out of it while I busied myself with polishing my knife.

"Well, now we have some stuff to hock off on the black market... Except I don't know any buyers." She said.

"Hand me my laptop, will ya?" I asked.

"Uh... Sure."

I pulled up Thiefnet and handed it back to her. "First come, first serve, Lindsey. Put up an ad for the goods, and the first person to give you an offer is the one who gets it. Unless there's a higher offer before you close the deal."

She looked perplexed for a moment, but did as I said. "Wait, won't they ask questions?"

"Lindsey, that site is a network solely for thieves. Only a handful of people know the access information." I replied, somewhat sharply.

It was what that voice had told me, at least. She'd told me the access information and explained the delicate workings of the site never seen in the game.

After a long moment, Lindsey declared that we had buyers.

"Where do we need to make the drops?" I asked.

"Well, one is at the Great Pyramids, which we passed like three seconds ago..."

Rudy made a sharp U-turn.

"And the other is just a few miles up North. Also up North is a very old temple that 'Furrball_of_the_Tundra' told me is loaded with goods."

_'I know that guy. He's an Otter who lives in the tundras up North. No doubt he lives in that temple and wants me to visit him again.'_

_Name?_

_'Acanthus.'_


	14. Unlucky Numbers

**A/N: Well, here ya go. Man, updates daily? I've never had this much inspiration for a story! And I made a funny... I hadn't planned for these events to take place in chapter 13. I already had the name of the chapter planned, but... I sort of didn't pay attention to my separation of the story thus far.**

* * *

Chapter 13: Unlucky Numbers

After we made the drops, getting large sums of money for both artifacts, we decided to head on up to Acanthus's temple. Of course, I didn't tell the others who he was. Rudy wanted to take a break for the night, but Lindsey wanted to get up there as soon as possible.

He looked like he was going to pass out, though, so I volunteered to stay up and drive for the night.

"Aw, you don't have to do that - I can keep going." He yawned hugely, completely contradicting what he'd said.

I shook my head, "Rudy, I slept almost all day today, I can drive tonight." I moved over the back of the seat and sat next to him. "Besides, _you_ need to get some sleep so you can drive tomorrow."

He reluctantly switched with me before climbing into the back and passing out immediately. I kept going for a while before Rajan spoke up.

"Driving at this time of night is unlucky."

Despite how much his voice startled me, I slowed to a stop on the side of the road. The clocked ticked to one. Twelve plus one was thirteen, so I could see where he was coming from.

"Well, how do you suggest I spend my time for the next hour?"

He climbed up into the seat next to me. "Well, we could get to know each other a little. We're still basically strangers."

"Uh, okay..."

He smiled at me, and, much to my displeasure, my heart did a somersault. I heard a soft giggle in the back of my mind. "Well, first, I guess, would be favorite colors. You first."

"Green." I replied, "Iridescent green, to be exact."

"Crimson." He shot back, "Music genre?"

"Anything, really, but I like alternative rock."

"Me too! Book?"

And we continued on like this for a while. Every answer that matched up made both of us grin, so we were smiling a lot, actually. When he asked for my birthday, I didn't really think about it when I answered. He frowned a bit.

"Hm... Born on an unlucky day at an unlucky time. Usually two wrongs don't make a right, but in your case..." He shook his head and told me his birthday.

I looked at the clock and was surprised to see that it was already 2:05. I put the van back in gear and we continued on. I pondered how I could have been born on an unlucky day at an unlucky time before it hit me. I had been born on the thirteeth at one o'clock in the morning on a Friday. I almost laughed at the absurdity of it.

Rajan seemed to understand the sudden smile that lit up my face and smiked as well. "Both of us seem to be surrounded by unlucky numbers." He said.


	15. Dreams (Again)

**A/N: Here's today's chapter, sorry there was nothing yesterday. I posted chapter 13 just after midnight the other night and didn't pay attention to what time it was. And this is totally a filler chapter. My inspiration sorta sputtered today because of school. Somebody really needs to kill the math teacher, she is _evil_.**

* * *

Chapter 14: Dreams (Again)

When dawn came, we still weren't in the Tundras yet. Rajan, who had stayed up with me, also fell asleep with me in the back of the van. Well, not _with _me, exactly, but nearby. He was barely a seat away from me, and when he finally fell asleep, his tail twitched up onto the seat and, subsequently, my hand.

I wrapped my own tail around my waist and curled up in the seat, burying my face into my own tail fur.

_I knew immediately that this time, I wasn't Jacey. In front of me there was a picture of Rioichi Cooper, and there were candles burning around it. A shrine to him, of sorts. From the way it was situated, I could guess I was kneeling on the floor in front of it._

_"Sly?"_

_I turned toward Carmelita's voice, feeling my lips twitch up in a smile. "Hey, Carmelita. How goes the job?"_

_She smiled only slightly, "Well enough. You?" My smile dropped. "Are you feeling okay, darling?" I asked, though the part of me that wasn't currently Sly was rather disturbed by the use of the pet-name._

_She shook her head. "Sly... I'm... Pregnant."_

_Shock, from both me and Sly. "...Seriously? You're not pulling my leg about this?"_

_She shook her head again. She almost looked sad, but it turned to shock when a face splitting grin took up residence on my face._

_"This is wonderful!"_

_I stood from where I was kneeling and embraced her tightly. She soon returned the hug happily. The pure love radiating from the two of them was enough to push me out of first person for a second, so I was watching the scene from outside of Sly's view of things. They kissed deeply, and I watched with what I know was a 'Oh my gods that's absolutely disgusting' expression on my face._

_After a second they broke apart and I felt comfortable enough with the situation to slide back into first person. It was just as well, as the dream/memory faded._

_••••••••••••_

_The familiarity of sharing with Jacey was a welcome change from the mushy scene I'd just witnessed. I was, for probably the hundreth time, watching the sun set over Paris. But this time there was someone with me. To my left was no doubt Damien, and to my right an elderly looking Sly._

_"I think I finally understand why you love this view so much." Damien commented._

_I nodded, and Sly smiled. He seemed to be supervising us for some reason. After a long time, the sun set fully and Paris was plunged into darkness. The brilliant lights only seemed to dazzle Damien further._

_Eventually, we began to leave. Sly followed behind me, moving with a grace that his age should not have allowed for. And eventually, his age caught up with him. Mid-jump, he doubled over in pain and plummeted toward the ground._

"Sly!" I sat up quickly before slowly taking in my surroundings.

Rajan was stirring slightly in the seat next to me, and we were absolutely alone in the van. For lack of anything better to do in order to lull him back to sleep, I scratched him behind the ear softly. He purred loudly and curled up tighter.

As soon as he dropped off, despite the danger, I curled up again fully intending to go back to sleep. It was cold up here, thouh, so that was hard. I could definitely tell the Tundras were close.

I shivered where I was for a few minutes before an arm like a steel band wrapped around me. Rajan curled himself protectively around me with only a blank, indifferent expression.

Soon, both of us dropped off. I didn't have any more dreams, but I was definitely aware that the van started up again at one point. After that, the feeling of a cover being draped over us. Rajan didn't seem to notice that, so I groggily pulled it tightly around both of us before falling asleep again.

Lindsey woke us up at nightfall.


	16. Polar Recon

**A/N: here's today's chapter...enjoy... sorry there wasn't one yesterday. I'll make up for it this weekend...**

* * *

Chapter 15: Polar Recon

"We're at the temple." She told us simply, although through a fit of uncontrolled giggles.

My immediate response was to throw a jacket at her. "Then why the hell aren't you wearin' a damn jacket?" I tried not to let her know how embarassed I was to have been caught like that with Rajan.

She shrugged and put it on. "Anyway, I got visual of an otter. Looks like he probably owns the place."

I nodded and moved up toward the front of the van, noticing that the aforementioned otter seemed to be pacing back and forth in front of a window.

_Is that Acanthus?_

_'Yup. That's him all right.'_

I nodded again, though I really didn't mean to. "He doesn't look too tough... Should we just bust up in there like we own the place, or do a couple days worth of recon?"

"Usually I'd say we do the second one, but the sooner we can get the hell outta here, the better." Lindsey said.

I shook my head, "Trick question, Lindsey." I clicked my tongue. "Recon is always the first order of business when you're a thief." I held up my Binoc-U-Com and took a closer look, noticing she had yet to add a camera to them.

I grabbed one out of my school bag and snapped a few shots of various places that I could see from the van. When I ran out of things I could focus on, I prepared to get out.

"Where are you going?" Rudy asked, sounding worried and alarmed.

"To get some more recon shots. I can't see everything from the van, you know."

"Without a jacket?" Rajan asked, looking slightly disapproving

"I have really thick fur, I can handle cold. It gets almost unbearable in summer."

I resisted the urge to clamp my hand over my mouth. The other girl could speak through me, it seemed, even without my consent. Rajan looked disbelieving, but let me get out anyway.

_'I was born up in this region, you know.'_ The girl remarked to me. _'It's why my fur is so thick.'_

I took another shot before hopping up on top of a bluff, far enough away they wouldn't hear me talking to myself.

"Really? Well, there's another difference. I was born in New Mexico, almost at the border. I could've been a Mexican if I wanted to." I smiled, "There was this one time, at summer camp, all the campers had a contest to see who could get the best tan, and I got disqualified because I'm pretty much Hispanic."

She laughed in my head. _'That's hilarious, Caldicot.'_

I took another few pictures before moving to a different spot. One of the guards sniffed and looked right up to where I was, but he saw nothing but more snow.

"That was close." I muttered, "Too close."

I made my way back to the van later that night, thought it might've been like five or six in the morning, and with my return, the others finally went to bed. After a few minutes, I followed them back into dreamland.


	17. The Tundra Temple

**A/N: Okay, now that _that_ episode of absolute melancholy is over... Enjoy! And try to guess who the voice is, I give plenty of hints this chapter, and I'm gonna tell you next chapter anyway.**

* * *

Chapter 16: The Tundra Temple

I had, very consciously, curled up as far away as possible from Rajan, so as not to repeat the previous wake-up call of Lindsey laughing her butt off. I had also settled myself a distance away from everybody else, so I didn't accidentally try to cuddle with them or something. Hey, there's always a possibility it'll happen.

Lindsey woke me up at some point by putting a blanket on me, but it was fleeting. I almost immediately fell asleep again. A little later, the heat of it became just a little too much, so I roused myself enough to toss it across the van and back over a shivering Lindsey.

"Like a boss..." I murmured under my breath.

I had simply gotten up at that point and grabbed my laptop so I could do something. I'm not kidding when I say I opened up Paint and doodled for the next few hours until everybody else got up. I had a relativly good picture by then, and it just needed a few extra touches before I would declare it finished.

Lindsey seemed surprised that I was already awake, but put it aside. She asked what I was doing, so I showed her the picture. She went over to make a plan muttering to herself about artistic thieves. She also mentioned a certain redheaded boy from a show I hadn't known existed here.

And I bet nobody catches that reference.

Anyway, it took a little time for the boys to get up, but naturally Rajan was awake long before Rudy was even stirring. He stayed where he was and watched events unfold. Eventually, Lindsey randomly got up and hopped out of the van. Apparently worried, a newly awakened Rudy followed after her.

After a short silence, Rajan spoke up.

"Sorry about...yesterday? I don't know why I -."

I shook my head, "Hey, don't make a fuss about it. It was comfy and Lindsey is just a squealing fangirl."

He smiled at me. "So, it didn't bother you?"

"Not in the slighest. Lindsey giggling like a schoolgirl about it sort of put me off it, but like I said, she's a fangirl."

His smile must've widened a whole inch at the words, I swear. Unfortunately, our heart-to-heart was cut short by Lindsey and Rudy reentering the van, thoroughly windswept and covered head to toe in fluffy white snow. I was slightly saddened by my loss of ability to have a private conversation, but I forced down my childish feelings and tried to be professional.

"Okay, Sophie, get your butt in there. After looking over your pictures and thinking, I've formally decided that 'busting up in there like we own the place' is actually the best strategy. There are little to no hiding places beyond where we've parked the van, but you should be able to manage."

She paused, "And you've got the thickest fur, so you should be able to just crouch and walk right in. The front doors are open and the snow is just pouring in, and it is a complete blizzard out there right now."

I nodded, "So I'd be covered in snow in no time, and with my fur..."

"You'll actually be able to handle it." Lindsey nodded back, obviously glad I understood. "I guess you don't need to go right now, but you'd better do it before this blizzard stops."

I stood up and stretched, "Then I'd better do it now, or I'll break out in a nasty rash of procrastination."

I slipped out into the cold winds and immediately found myself covered in snow. I blinked, and walked right up to the building and inside. The guards had taken up shelter somewhere else and weren't paying attention anyway.

"So what's this Acanthus guy like, anyway?" I asked quietly.

_'Easy going, not likely to care if you kill that guard over there,' _I did so, _'Relatively kind, not too opposed to tricking people. He was a friend of my parents. Excuse me, **your** parents, now.'_

I nodded, not even bothering with stealth. Acanthus most likely already knew I was here, anyway. I wasn't shy about snatching up on some of his stuff either. Honestly, he should have been expecting it, telling me the place was loaded.

Has anybody figured out who my 'voice' is yet? Keep trying.

Eventually, I reached the room where I had previously spotted Acanthus pacing. He was not present, but that hardly put me off waiting for him.

••••••••••••

It actually took a few hours and me telling Lindsey what I was doing for him to show up. He looked a little surpised to see me just sitting in the extra chair, actually having a cup of coffee. He quickly shook his head and smiled.

"Always one step ahead of me, aren't you, Sophie?" He asked

Most of the rest of the conversation slips my mind, but I know someone who can tell you the whole visit...

+.- -.+

Okay, so, she's making me tell you this part.

I pushed forward to respond, and Sophie moved willingly out of my way. "I suppose, but you should've expected it. Honestly, I'm surprised you didn't just come right out and tell me 'hey, I live in a temple loaded with stuff and I really want to talk to you after you rob me blind.'"

He seemed to be amused by my antics, as per usual. "Well, I have to try, don't I?" He sat down carefully, "I have a great deal of money you know I'd be willing to give you, and a lot of stuff you know I'll let you take. I know you don't like it when people try to help you, but I know you probably don't have an actual hideout right now. Am I correct?"

"Aye, you are, Acanthus, but why bring me all the way up here to tell me that?"

"Because I can get you one...In Paris, if you'd like. You'd never be detected."


	18. Hideouts and Deals

**A/N: Hii thaar! New chapta! Enjoy! And the voice is...**

**Sophie Cooper: Moi.**

**Yep, Sophie Cooper!**

**Sophie Caldicot: Honestly? I'm relatively sure they figured that out a while ago.**

* * *

Chapter 17: Hideouts and Deals

"Otteradaptedtolivinginthetundrasay_WHAT?_"

He raised an eyebrow, "What?"

"Exactly." Came out rather absently, "But seriously? A hideout back in Paris? Oh my gods!"

He smiled at my return of enthusiasm. "Yes, Sophie, seriously. A good hideout, too."

I was skeptical, to say the least. I knew Acanthus, and he never gave anyone anything without asking for something in return.

"What's the catch, Acanthus?" I asked dryly.

He shook his head, "No catch. There's never a catch when you're involved."

I pursed my lips, but nodded slowly. "Okay... but where is it and when can we go there to set up shop?"

He smiled and began to explain to me.

Okay, back to you, Caldicot.

+.- -.+

Thanks. When I came to, she had walked me down into the foyer again. I stood there for a moment to get my bearings and walked back to the van. Lindsey was shocked to find out who owned the place. It didn't seem like she really thought about the possibility that good ol 'Furrball' was the owner of the temple he'd given us the tip about.

The blizzard still hadn't let up when I returned to the van, and neither me or Rudy wanted to leave the van running all night, so all four of us gathered together in the middle of the back of the van.

After some awkward silences, we all curled together, Lindsey and Rajan basically in the middle and Rudy and I, due to my thick fur and him being a wolf, on the outside. We also pulled a cover over all of us to better trap the heat.

I found myself idly wondering what had been going through Rajan's head when he had decided to cuddle with me the other night. Then my thoughts wandered to how carefully he'd been holding me, like I might break, and then to how cute he looked when he was sleeping.

I tried to knock the thoughts away and fell asleep with what was probably the most adorable 'WTF' expression ever plain on my face.

I dreamed again.

_I blinked, and in front of me was Damien, holding out a hand and smiling. I smiled back and took his hand._

_Somehow he managed to pull me to my feet with those pencil arms of his. But the force he pulled me up with caused me to end up in his arms with our lips pressed harshly together. Both of us blushed, but didn't move away for a moment._

_"Well geez, Damien, if you wanted a kiss all you had to do was ask." I said, but my cheeks were still bright red._

_The part of me that wasn't Jacey at the moment couldn't even move out of first person._

_Damien and I slowly pressed our lips together again, both of us a little scared and hesitant._

I woke up before anything else could go down. I literally forced myself awake and laid there silently for a few minutes.

Heedless of the time, I got up and started the van. My foot kept the gas pedal pinned to the floor for the next few hours, and it was no surprise to me that I made the previously two day trip in just those few. Cairo went past in a flash, except for when I stopped to get gas.

As soon as that was done, I was off again. The others were still asleep when I finally got to Paris, and my first look at the clock told me why - it was only three in the morning.

"That means I got like a half hour of sleep... Damn..." I muttered before shutting off the van.

I had parked in the garage of the new hideout, and though it slightly worried me that it had been unlocked, I was only too happy to be done driving.

Say what you will about the size of my arms, but they managed to lift Rudy and Lindsey out of the back and up into the bedrooms of the hideout. At the same time. Rajan woke up the second I touched him, his hand shooting out and almost scratching me across the face.

I caught his arm in the same moment I moved to avoid his claws. He seemed to realize who I was and gave me a half sheepish grin. "Sorry, Soph."

My heart, much to my irritation, fluttered uncontrollably at his use of the nickname. So far he'd only called me that when we were pretending to be a couple in the Cairo Museum.

"It's fine." I managed to say, albeit a bit flatly.

He seemed to think it was because of his near mauling of my face, though, so it was okay. He followed me up into the hideout quietly, and sighed happily when I showed him his room.

"Thanks, Soph!" He said smiling brightly at me.

I couldn't help but smile back, "No problem, Rajan."

His smile dropped a little, then immediately came back up. I don't think he knows I noticed the change.

"What happened to calling me Reggie?" He asked, and the smile on his face started to seem like a polite mask.

"I didn't think you wanted me to. Should I?" I knew my smile was a bit forced.

His started to seem more like an actual smile again as he nodded, "If you want to, that is."

"Okay. Night...Reggie."

His smile made my heart stop abruptly. My use of the nickname seemed to make him happier than anything in the world. At the time I thought it was because he was happy to really be accepted into the team. After all, who joins forces with a family enemy just because?

"Night, Sophie!" He said cheerfully before retreating into the room.

I stood there like a statur for a few minutes, trying to calm the frantic beating of my heart. My hand pressed lightly against my chest and I took a deep breath, steadying myself. If he kept this up, I wouldn't be able to hide my feelings for very long.

I couldn't sleep that night, my thoughts were far too jumbled. All I could think about was Rajan and I... together.


	19. One Year Later

**A/N: Enjoy! Also, if you're a Naruto fan at all, I have a Naruto fic up. Advent of Dragon's Fire the name. Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura are present, but only Naruto is very important to the storyline. Now that that's outta the way, onto the chapter!**

* * *

Chapter 18: One Year Later... (aka Allie is Too Lazy to Write All of The In-Between Crap)

I spun my cane anxiously in my hand, watching carefully as Lindsey made the exchange of goods with the goose. I knew Lindsey had it covered, and I didn't need to watch anymore, but I couldn't help it.

"Ah... Another day, another deal." Lindsey stated.

"And another theft." I pointed out casually, "Let's not forget how you acquired those jewels."

She smirked. "Yeah, well, I'd just like to thank Muggsy for having second rate security systems."

Quick recap, Muggsy was the great grandson of Muggshot. Muggsy's real name was Albert, but in his enthusiasm to be like 'ol grandpappy, he went by Muggsy. Very recently, in search of a missing sum of gold from Henry's personal stash, we hit Muggsy's base, and we hit it hard.

He never knew what hit him. We left him tied up for Henry and his Interpol team to find later. Henry seemed highly amused that we had strung the dog up by the shreds of his great grandfather's sweatshirt.

Anyway, other than that we really hadn't done much in the past year. My targets quickly stopped being public places or places of interest and became rich people. None of them ever figured out how I was getting in, but I was highly wanted. My entries in the Thievius Raccoonus became longer and more exciting, much like Sly's.

Now, a year older, and most certainly a year wiser, we kept getting tips that someone was targeting Paris. Targeting Paris how, you might ask... They were going to slaughter the entire city in one foul swoop, with a bomb.

Lindsey was doing her best to figure out who it was that was targeting our home, but she couldn't get any leads. All we knew was that we were in danger.

On the bright side, our hideout prooved to be very hard for the Police to find. This definitely helped us out and gave Henry some time to come up with an excuse as to why we had escaped.

Smiling, I greeted Rudy and Rajan as we reentered the hideout.

Rajan... I had, despite my earlier worries, managed to hide my feelings from everyone. They had no clue how I felt about him, and I was glad to keep it that way. My relationship with him was friendly, and he didn't seem to notice anything strange about how I was acting. Apparently I'm just really good at not letting on how I feel about certain things.

Sophie Cooper, on the other hand, wouldn't shut up about it. That's the problem with having her in my head. She wouldn't shut up.

+.- -.+

Oh, come on! I'm not that bad.

She never stopped thinking about him, so I think I was justified. Honestly...

+.- -.+

Okay, enough of that. Anyway, our teammates were happy we'd come back safe, gotten the loot... blah-dee-da. Skipping to the good part.

+.- -.+

Impatient much?

+.- -.+

Hush.

Due to a tip Lindsey had managed to dig up - at an extremely high price -, we were about to leave for Russia. Namely, the Krack Karov Volcano, Clockwerk's old lair of doom.

The ruins of his lair were long lost under the molten lava, but a newer structure had recently been erected there. The person who told us refused to tell us their name, which I could understand. We didn't want whoever this guy was hurting our only informant.

That would be bad biscuits, and bad biscuits make the baker broke, yo.

..._Anyway_, we decided our first stop, before the steaming bath of molten metal, would be St. Petersburg. No real reason as to why other than to set up a temporary base of operations. After so much time, we were no rookies at moving from town to town quietly, even if Paris provided our main base._  
_

After a brief conversation about it, we decided that I would drive instead of Rudy, so he could do recon with Lindsey. Whaat his driving had to do with his recon, I had no idea, but I was happy enough to drive my own van for once. Sophie kept giggling and saying that those two weren't just gonna do recon together.

Honestly, I agreed, but didn't press the matter with the two of them. I respectd their privacy and likewise they didn't invade mine.

We set off around sunset so as to avoid the cops. Henry saw us and grinned, waving. I waved back and we continued on without interruption. This was getting way too easy.


	20. St Petersburg!

**A/N: Here's chapter 19! Ay ay ay! Sorry this took forever... *bows repeatedly, sweat-dropping dejectedly* My most sincere apologies!**

**Also, this was supposed to be posted around four to five hours ago, therefore yesterday.**

* * *

Chapter 19: St. Petersburg!

_Have you heard? There's a rumor in St. Petersburg! Have you heard, what they're saying on the strets?!_

I couldn't stop myself from humming the tune merrily. I was half happy I still remembered anything from one of my favorite movies of all time: Anastasia. But the other half was still worried about forgetting everything. After all this time, only a few things had slipped away, but it still bothered me.

But, honestly, I'm not sure why it did. It wasn't as if my life was one of those great ones everybody always talked about. My life sucked.

But I put my musings aside for the moment and continued on.

_Although the czar did not survive, one daughter may be still alive - the princess Anastasia! Alive? Or, Dead?! Who knows? Shh!_

My humming didn't stop for a while, even when I ran out of Anastasia songs. I continued through quite a few movies I loved, including The Nightmare Before Christmas, which prompted me to check the date. Only three days until Christmas. Of course, I immediately started humming 'Mr. Grinch' in response.

After some long hours, we arrived in St. Petersburg and I ran out of movie soundtracks. While we looked around for a hideout, I switched to game soundtracks. By the time we finally _did_ find a hideout, I found myself humming Under the Apple Tree from Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core.

"Hm hm hm hmhmhmhmhmhm. Hm hm hm hmhmhmhmhmhmm."

Lindsey looked at me funny as she started setting things up, but I pretended not to pay attention. Honestly, it wasn't like we never caught each other humming over the past year. She was even more guilty of it than I was, actually. That was a first.

Either way, we got our hideout set up and decided to celebrate Christmas early, just in case.

Rajan got a coat from Lindsey, fitting for the weather and country. From Rudy he got a handheld video game console and around six different games. I just gave him some random loot I knew he'd like.

Lindsey got a vast amount of random technology from all of us, but considering her obsession, can you blame us?

Rudy got some driving gloves from Rajan, a coat once again courtesy of Lindsey, and I gave him a scarf. He's easy to please.

As for me, Rajan returned the favor by giving me loot that I would happily keep for myself. Rudy gave me a new laptop, as Lindsey had pretty much stolen my other one. And, like the boys, Lindsey got me a coat.

All of us both thanked and chided her on her choice of gifts, but didn't actually do much complaining. We settled down to sleep in order to be rested for the start of our latest hit the next morning. I almost couldn't sleep I was so pumped.

Eventually, though, the need for sleep nagged my adrenaline into sunmission and I fell fast asleep.


	21. Into The Volcano

**A/N: Back to regular updatess, y'all! See you tomorrow with chapter 21! (22 if you count the prologue, which I don't.)**

**And HOLY HEPHAESTUS I HAVE NEVER WRITTEN A STORY WITH MORE THAN 13 CHAPTERS! This is a gigantic landmark for me, seriously!**

**Also, I don't own Sly Cooper or the locations present in the story. I only own Rajan II, Rajan III, Sophie, Henry, Lindsey, Rudy, the mice in the orphanage, the total asshole who blew up said orphanage, Acanthus, Muggsy, and the plot of this story. Thank you.**

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Chapter 20: Into The Volcano

Morning came all to quickly, and not just for me. Lindsey was practically a pile of nerves, Rudy was obviously freaking out, and Rajan seemed highly tense. I could understand, but the past year or so had taught me to hold my emotions until afterwards so they wouldn't effect my performance.

But seriously, this was a very important hit. One that could either end in us reigning triumphant over this crazy son of a bitch, or Paris laying in ruins and our entire lives crumpled to little more than dust - or entirely nonexistent. I forced myself not to shiver at the implications and waited for Rudy or Lindsey to report in.

"How are you so calm?" Rajan asked, sounding disbelieving.

"I'm not. I'm scared half to death, but I'm trying to keep it at bay so I can do my job." I replied, tapping my fingers on the table.

It was only then that he seemed to notice my tell-tale body language. As a thief, I was hardly ever still without reason, but I was absolutely hyperactive. My fingers continually drummed on the table, my feet wouldn't stay in one place and my legs constantly adjusted to accommodate for the new position. And my tail! It was twitching away even more than was usual, refusing to still at all.

"Oh, I see now. My own nerves must've been getting in the way of seeing yours." He said.

I just continued to fidget and squirm nervously, waiting for a report of any kind from my two closest friends. After a few minutes, I finally got one.

"Sophie, we'll be coming back a little later than we thought. Found a really good vantage point to do some more recon from." Rudy said.

I sighed in relief, my fidgeting relaxing only slightly. "Alright. Come back safe."

My fidgeting continued for quite a few more minutes before Rajan carefully placed one hand over both of mine to still them. He gave a small smile and looked me in the eyes.

"Everything's gonna be alright." He said, looking quite a bit calmer than before the report.

I wasn't entirely convinced, and he knew it, so he brought up his other hand and brushed some of my hair out of my face, placing it gently on my cheek afterward.

"Soph... Don't worry. Even if Rudy, Lindsey, and I go down before you - if we go down at all -, I know you'll avenge us. You're a damn terrifying sight when you're angry, believe me." He said, bringing his other hand off my hands and placing it on my other cheek.

I relaxed a bit and had to laugh a little. "I'm sure you're just saying that..."

He shook his head, his eyes wide with honesty, "No, I'm serious! When Muggsy insulted Sly, you should've seen yourself! You immediately found a place on my list of people I don't want to piss off..."

I laughed a bit more. "Mind telling me who else is on that list and where I am on it?"

He smiled again, "Well, there's Henry on the very top of that list - I thought he was gonna murder me when he saw me the first time! Then _you_ as the second one. After you is whoever's planning to blow up Paris... And my dad and grandpa on the very bottom of the list."

"Short list." I observed with some amusement.

He shrugged, "Well, you know me. I piss off almost everyone I meet and not very many of them can do anything too horrible to me for it except for the people on that list."

During the whole exchange, his hands remained on my face. It was driving me nuts, because his face was so close to mine and I could smell whatever shampoo he used and my self-control was hanging by a thread. I had still managed to keep my feelings from him, but he definitely wasn't making it easy for me today. I wondered idly if he was doing it on purpose.

Rajan didn't actually seem to notice my quickly dissolving self-control, though, and I was thankful for it. But his breath was hot on my face and I just couldn't stop thinking of how it might feel to kiss him. Strangely enough, his mind seemed to be mirroring mine, and he slowly moved just a littke closer before stopping himself.

"Soph... I..." He seemed stuck on whatever words he wanted to say, something that was very uncharacteristic for Rajan.

After a second he just sighed. I thought he might pull away when he closed his eyes for a moment before opening them and swallowing hard. He made eye contact with me but didn't move in the slightest. I swallowed as well, though much less noticeably.

"Reggie..." I said, breathing shallow, "What were you gonna say...?"

Something in him seemed to snap at my words, and he leaned forward quickly, pressing his lips against mine. Needless to say, my brain ceased to function. It sputtered a little as he pulled back, telling me the look on his face was unsure. I could only stare at him for the first few seconds as my brain rebooted.

"Um...wow." I eventually said.

Yeah, I know. I'm highly articulate. Laugh it up.

Rajan watched me warily for a second before something akin to hope flashed in his eyes. "You're... you're not angry?"

I smirked, "Hell no."

I pulled him back to me, glad that I hadn't had to make the first move. He smiled both at my words and actions, seemingly ecstatic that I was accepting him now that his feelings were out in the open. He understood me well enough to know what I wanted, and he pressed our lips together a second time.

My heart just about jumped out of my chest, I was so happy. And can you blame me? The guy I'd had a crush on since Cairo was kissing me, and almost obviously felt the same way!

Oh, and, his lips were even better than I'd imagined not even five minutes before. Just thought I'd say so, get it out in the open.

Anyway, my romance aside, it wasn't long before Rudy reported in again. "Sophie, we're on our way back. Should only be around 30 minutes."

"Alright. Be careful." I replied, albeit a little breathlessly.

Rudy didn't seem to notice, which didn't surprise me, "No problem."

Rajan smirked at me when I let go of the 'reply' button, continuing to do so after Rudy cut the transmission. I fidgeted just a little under his smug gaze.

"...the hell you staring a me for?" I finally asked.

"That's a lovely shade of red."

He brushed his hands across my cheeks again, and I leaned into the touch unlike earlier. "Shut up, you smug bastard."

He only smiled again, "So, are we official?"

I considered it for a moment. "Do you want us to be?" I asked, looking at my hands that were still holding the front of his shirt.

To be honest, I was slightly in denial that he returned my feelings. But he quickly remedied that by tugging my face up slightly and kissing me for the third time that day.

"Yes, I do want us to be. It all depends on you, Soph." He murmured against my lips.

I forced myself not to bite my lip, as it would've been kind of awkward. "Then yes...but let's keep it quiet for now, okay?" I murmured back.

He smiled slightly and moved his lips slowly against mine again. I melted at the care he moved with, moving back a little hesitantly. I felt more than heard him chuckle at my nervousness. After a moment, he pulled back and pulled his thumb along my face below my mask, smiling softly.

"Yeah. We can keep it quiet." He said, and kissed my forehead before pulling back and going to sit where he'd been before.

He was _good_! It didn't look like anything at all had happened if you just looked at him. I myself, I knew, was a pile of blissfully happy and kissed goo in my chair at the moment. After a moment, Sophie Cooper delivered the mental image of a swift kick in my shins to snao me out of it. I felt the kick physically, but managed to hold back my yelp well enough that Rajan, who was playing one of the games Rudy had bought for him, didn't hear it.

I sat up and shook myself, opening my new - and most likely stolen - laptop and opening a Word document to, well, document the events that had just occured. By the time Rudy and Lindsey walked through the door, I had finished writing it and was working on transcribing the Thievius Raccoonus - from memory.

The blush I knew had coated my face not moments before had faded just in time, too.

"Well," Lindsey began, "here are the photos." She tossed them to me and I examined them. "See anything you can work with, Ringtail?"

I looked closer at the careful pictures, examining each one until I had the layout of everything they'd photographed arranged into a mental map of the place. I nodded carefully. "Yeah." I drew out my map on a scrap piece of paper and traced my route in. "Assuming there're no alarms, I can get in through here, probably find my way to the main control room relatively quickly, turn off all the security systems, and let you guys in through here."

I tapped each place on the map as I mentioned it, and Lindsey nodded in approval.

"Closest thing to a plan we've got." She said.

And we set out for the Krack Karov Volcano.


	22. The Fortress

**A/N: Hello everybody. Enjoy chapter 21!**

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Chapter 21: The Fortress

As calm as I managed to appear to Rudy and Lindsey, I was little more than a big bundle of nersome energy when we started the van and headed off towards the Krack Karov Vocano. Rajan continuously sent me reassuring glances, which made me think he was wathing me more carefully now that we were, erm... together.

When we eventually reached the volcano, Rajan stepped out with me. After making sure Lindsey and Rudy couldn't see us unless they popped out of the back of the van, he kissed me again.

"Relax. You'll be fine." He said.

I knew there was a chance he was wrong, but also an equal chance he was right. Just in case, though, I pulled him down a bit and pressed our lips together. My nerves calmed slightly as he wrapped his arms around my waist and pulled me closer. And then, my tension melted away when he nipped my lip playfully.

"'M telling you - you'll be fine." He said as he pulled away.

I smiled without really realising I did so. "Whatever you say."

He smiled back, "Good Ringtail." He teased.

I rolled my eyes and retraced my route a few times in my head as I walked toward my most probable entrance point. I swallowed, remembering Rajan's words and internally declaring I wouldn't make a liar out of him, before I took the deepest breath I thought I'd ever take. Before any treacherous second thoughts could stop me, I hopped into the volcano.

The temperature change just about did me in, and I stood panting for a second to adjust. I made a mental note to stay out of volcanos unless absolutely nessecary from that point forward and began slinking toward the only probable entrance to the fortress itself.

Cooper decided to make herself known again, finally. _'Hey, Caldicot... Can I steal your attention for just a sec?'_

_Sure!_

_'Well... I just wanted to say... Thanks for taking my place without any complaints. Not many people would do that. If you wanna just back out now, though, and go home, I could send you back...'_

Something told me she was utterly serious about the offer, but I immediately shook my head. "Cooper, I'm not leaving them alone. And, before you mention it, no, I'm not doing this out of some demented sense of duty. I'm doing it because I want to."

She was quiet for a minute. _'I'll hold onto your memories for you.'_ She said eventually.

"While I'm flattered by the sentiment, you don't need to. I'm not too fond of most of my memories anyway." I began scaling the wall.

_'Then I'll hold onto the ones you **are** fond of.'_

And thus, the conversation ceased. I made it to the window that would serve as my entrance and checked for any kind of alarms. Satisfied by what I saw, I managed to drop in through it. Immediately, everything went to hell. It wasn't because of an alarm, a guard, or even an appearance from the bossman himself.

It was because Sophie Cooper suddenly appeared right next to me.

She looked surprised herself and seemed to try and will herself away, but she remained. All I actually got from her was a 'WTF?!' expression. I only shrugged and shook my head insistently. We both knew better than to say anything, of course, so we couldn't display our confusion any other way.

I immediately decided we were going to have to do something if we didn't want the others finding out about her. But I couldn't think of anything. And neither could she, apparently, if her expression was anything to go by.

I shook my head again. We could figure it out on the way to the control room, I decided. And so we took off in perfect sync toward the control room, both of us confused as hell but not willing to let it get in the way of the mission. With the way we managed to blend into the shadows, stop each other with inly a look, and all around just move in exact coordinence with each other, you would've thought we'd been working side by side for a decade or so.

The control room, unfortuneately, housed our way out of the awkward explanation of Sophie Cooper. The guy who'd blown the orphanage up - you remember that jackass, don't ya? - was sitting facing the door when we walked in. He smiled, exposing two sets of perfectly straight teeth and two sharp canines.

His fur was reddish orange, his eyes amber.

"Welcome, Sophie Cooper, Sophie Cladicot." He said, "You've fallen right into my trap, I'm afraid."

Damn, that fox was good. The door slammed shut behind us and bloted itself. His smile widened into a manic grin.

"Who are you?!" Sophie asked.

"I am Keaton, Sophie Cooper. I hope you enjoy your stay." And he disappeared just like he had down the road from the orphanage.

"...Well, at least he was decent enough to answer the question, eh Caldicot?" Sophie turned to me.

"Yeah. Sure." I said flatly. "Decent is exactly the word I'd use to describe that bastard."

"Gee, who bit you? Usually you'd be joking around more than this..."

I looked at her and pressed my lips together. "Damn fox outwitted me. My pride and my ego just took a big hit."

I got out some of my gear to examine the door, trying to figure out some way to unlock it. Eventually I gave up and went to the controls, hoping it wouldn't have been that simple. It was. I growled and pressed the button to open the door again, finding it opened a completely different one that led down a long corridor.

"I'll go check that out. Don't let that door lock me in." Sophie said.

I nodded and watched her go through. Keaton appeared next to me suddenly. To my credit, I didn't scream when he spoke up by way of announcing his presence.

"It must be incredibly convienient to be two different people who are almost exactly alike." He said.

I jumped a little, but otherwise didn't let him know he'd startled me. "Sometimes. It's usually annoying as hell because we tend to not remember to screen our thoughts."

He nodded. "I sense I have insulted you somehow." He stated somewhat curiously.

"I don't take kindly to being outwitted. Waiting for people comfortably and greeting them while they're still reeling is my thing."

He nodded again. "You are being very kind to me, all things considered." He pointed out.

"Because you'd probably teleport away if I tried to punch you in the face."

"True."

Suddenly, Cooper's voice sounded in my head. _'Leads to some sort of throne room. I'm smarter than I look, so I'm not gonna go in.'_

"Thanks for the update, Sophie. Get back here." I said out loud.

Keaton raised an eyebrow. "So you two can still speak even though you are separated? Interesting..."

As he was obviously thoroughly distracted and I wasn't going to miss the chance, I punched him right in the mouth. While he was reeling back I got behind him and delivered a roundhouse kick, muttering, "Boot to the head!" under my breath with a smile. He turned to retaliate, bjt he obviously didn't do much fighting. He was sloppy and uncoordinated, but after a year of heists I was more than 'okay' in hand-to-hand and armed-to-unarmed combat.

I caught his fist when he threw a pitiful excuse for a punch at me, and very easily turned his momentum and body weight against him. Inertia's a real bitch when someone like me is around to control it. His fist provided a good enough hold for me to pull Keaton on past me, delivering a knee to his family jewels as he went past. He squeaked and I looped my arm around over my head and let go. He crashed into the opposite side of the room right as Sophie ran in.

She caught him and gave me a faintly amused look before tugging him to his feet, turning around, and giving him a nice uppercut. It connected with a solid thump and a resounding crack. He flew back in my direction and I, giggling a bit as I did so, corndogged him.

Sophie couldn't even hold herself in - she almost immediately dropped to the floor and cracked up laughing. Keaton used the distraction to disappear to some other place.

"Seriously, Cooper? You're _seriosusly_ ROTFLOLing here of all places?"

She nodded through her laughter, so I decided to just wait until she got done. It took her a while to sober up. "Man, seriously? A corndog in a serious fight? You just made my entire existence."

I rolled my eyes. "Make yourself useful and make sure those doors don't close. I'm gonna go see if he teleported off to that throne room you told me about."

She nodded and looked over the controls while I stalked into the corridor. A few minutes of walking brought me to the throne room she'd mentioned. True to my beliefs, Keaton was in the throne room, sitting on the throne and nursing his chin. He didn't seem to notice me, but sent a nearby soldier up towards the doorway I was standing in.

Instinct kicked in and I almost immediately found myself on the ceiling, waiting for the guard to pass. He did so and I dropped down behind him to continue to watch Keaton, forgetting for a moment that Sophie Cooper was back in the control room. But surely, I thought when it crossed my mind, she could handle herself against one guard?

As I watched Keaton, the fortress began to shake. Parts of the throne room began to fall, and Keaton stared in fear at the ceiling. The tremors ceased after a minute, but I was keenly aware that there was someone behind me. Sophie suddenly popped up next to me.

"I say we blow this joint - like, _now_, Caldicot." She said.

I nodded. With the way the place was shaking, I didn't want to stay unless absolutely nesscary.

So we dropped onto the main floor, right in view of Keaton, who got up as if to chase us, but being thieves and knowing the secret of how to turn invisible even after you've been seen, we weren't in any immediate danger, especially not from him.

We got to the front door of the place without encountering any actual danger, and we paused to think of how we were going to explain Sophie Cooper to the others. After a second, she just shrugged and walked outside...

...Only to disappear the second she did so.

_'Huh. Must've been something unique to inside that building.'_


	23. In Which Rudy

**A/N: New chapter y'all. Eek! At least 5 chapters til completion, but probably more than that because I love this story so much and I want to draw it out for a while.**

**This is a total filler chapter, for example. I just love this little pairing I have come up with. Er, rather, it came up with itself because I didn't plan for there to be _any_ romance. Warnings for the chapter? Rajan III/Sophie Caldicot fluffiness! And, aside from that, a little angst and overreactions.**

**Also, I have absolutely no knowledge of relationships whatsoever, since I've only had two boyfriends and I dated one in elementary school and the other one for a month last year. I haven't even had my first kiss yet. And I don't even know anything at _all_ about being hormonal - stuff like that goes right over my head most of the time. This is written based on what little experience I have and books/fanfics I've read. Tell me how it is, please, even if you think it's horrible I need feedback!**

**Anyway, enjoy!**

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Chapter 22: In Which Rudy Is The Only Person Who's Not A Dick

I honestly didn't give a rip if it was a unique thing. I just wanted to get back to the van. Back to Rajan, Lindsey, and Rudy.

No, I was _not_ happy to have failed a simple hit, _no,_ I would _not_ be satisfied until that guy was dead, and _NO,_ I was _NOT_ going to punch anything in my frustration. I'm a thief and therefore need my hands so why would I do something so stupid? Honestly, that's not the proper way to go about venting anyway. Everybody knows that if you intend to vent, you should go to a living person, though I don't suggest hitting _them_.

I all but slunk dejectedly into the van, shocking everyone present. I must've radiated my sore ego and my rather bad mood about Keaton, because none of them asked a single question. They just set off back toward Paris, as our things were already packed, knowing not to disturb me until I came out of my tiff.

Sophie, wisely, also stayed quiet. She knew that, though I had humiliated him and gotten in a few good hits, I was still insulted that Keaton had outwitted me. Our wit is something the two of us take very seriously, and getting one-upped by anybody was a serious insult.

When we finally got to Paris, I marched straight to my room to plot my revenge. Coooers might not be vengeful people most of the time, but we Caldicots most certainly are.

I actually had it all planned out and documented when Rajan knocked on my door. "Can I come in?"

"Sure..."

He entered carefully and walked over to me. His dominant side seemed to take over for a second and he pinned me with my back against my desk while he lightly pecked me on the lips. "Do you want to talk about it?"

Not angrily, but slightly annoyed, I nipped him on the lips, hoping it conveyed my answer properly.

He chuckled slightly, "Can I take a guess, then?"

"Feel free."

"Mm... Too many guards?" He asked, kissing me again before looking for my answer. I nipped him again. "The guy was bat crap crazy?" Another nip. "Mmm... If you keep doing that I might snap just a little... Evil twin?" Even though that had happened, it wasn't why I was in a mood, so I nipped his lips a fourth time. "Hm... I don't wanna give up but I don't wanna unhinge on you..."

He pressed our noses together fondly, and he made a last ditch effort. "The guy, who was also bat crap crazy, managed to injure your pride somehow?"

I had to smile a little when he hit the nail right on the head. "Bingo." I murmured, dropping my eyes from his to his cheeks.

He rubbed our noses together - an eskimo kiss. I would've squealed at the cuteness of it had I been watching this go down between someone else, even if it was Rajan to some chick I didn't know. I'm one of those people that is willing to let go of people they love, even if it means watching that person in a relationship with someone else.

"Anything I can do about that?" He quirked his eyebrow and gave me a small smile, the corners of his lips just barely twitching up.

Oh, shit. There was still stuff going on. I would've been happy to just stand there, but his question put my brain back in working order. "...I can think of something..." I trailed off.

His smile widened when mine flickered into existence. "Hn. Thought so." He chuckled lightly and removed our noses from their proximity to each other, choosing instead to kiss me.

We were moving a little quickly, I thought, considering we had only gotten together that day. But I wasn't complaining, obviously! Sappy romance novel-esque stuff coming up, just so you know. It's exactly what I was thinking that day, so don't knock it.

To be honest, every single kiss I had shared with Rajan that day made me feel high as a kite, and in a completely drug-related use of the phrase. I felt like my entire body started humming when he was kissing me, like it does when you've got too much energy and you get the urge to run, do cartwheels, anything to get rid of it. Only, it was a relatively nice feeling, a little too clichè for my tastes, but nice all the same.

Now, I might not have mentioned this, but Rajan is a bit taller than me. Not so much as to make me feel abnormally short, but there was definitely a few inches difference. And, considering I was slumped slightly against the table, our position left a few things to be desired.

I broke the kiss for a second, moving my hands from wherever I currently had them - excuse me if I don't remember properly - so I could pull myself up backwards and onto the desk. Rajan was obviously pleased by my decision if the way he was kissing me now was anything to go by.

I don't want to sound like a tart, but _damn_ he was good! At kissing, I mean. That's all we did that day, honestly.

Though... I wouldn't have been opposed if he'd suggested otherwise...

Okay, now that I've got myself blushing a color that rivals Rajan's favorite shirt, let me just point out that I'm a hormonal teenage girl and anything else that comes out of my mouth even remotely like that is completely hormone driven.

We spent a lot of that afternoon making out and exchanging deceivingly innocent pecks, and some of it lazing about on my bed. Lindsey, thankfully, didn't walk in on us until one point when Rajan was pretty much attacking me. He'd started a tickle war some few minjtes before, and both of us were laughing.

"So is she out of her mood yet?" Lindsey asked.

"No, I'm still pissed but -" I was cut off by another barrage of tickles.

"But she's sufficiently distracted." Rajan finsished for me.

Lindsey laughed. "It's dinner time, you two." And she left.

So we had gotten up, exchanging a soft kiss, before following her to the kitchen, where we had our table.

"You two were in there alone for an awful long time. What were you doing?" Lindsey asked suspiciously.

"Well, we spent the first hour or so drawing up my plans for revenge, then we chit-chatted for a while until I got bored and I decided to start the tickle war you interrupted. And by 'chit-chatted' I mean 'spouted nonsense stories of times before we knew each other at the other party's request'."

"Yeah," Rajan nodded, "She told me about some of the stuff you two used to get up to in the orphanage, and I told her about... well, anything she asked about, really."

They were easily convinced, but Lindsey required a little more proof. "Can I see these plans for revenge?"

"They're on my desk in the manila folder labelled 'revenge plans'. No joke."

So she went and got them, only seeming satisfied when she had read through all of them. "Yeah, that's just like you, Soph. Ready to get revenge on someone just because they outwitted you..." She shook her head.

I pressed my lips together, "Yes, well, my wit and any challenges to it are serious business to me, and you know it. Not only that, but he also decided to beat my ego with a mallet because he can't stay still long enough for me to land a decent hit unless I distract him!"

There was a silence from the others as they stared at me.

"He's trying to blow up Paris, you guys. Were you expecting me to go in there and be a diplomat?" I asked flatly.

"She's got a point there, you guys." Rudy pointed out.

"Yeah, but it's still really not like you to wanna hit someone." Lindsey said.

I sighed, "Maybe it wasn't in the orphanage, Lindsey. I don't know. But, in case you haven't noticed, none of us is the way we were in the orphanage, at least not completely. The still annoyingly persistent amnesia doesn't really help my case, either."

But she and Rajan - Rajan, who'd just been snogging me in order to distract me - were both staring at me like I was a completely different person.

I sighed again, more quietly this time. "Yeah, of course. I get pissed and you two aren't even gonna treat me the same just because I wanted to hit him. Some friends you are."

I got up and went straight back to my room, slamming the door behind me and, for the first time in the year we'd lived there, locked it. I flopped onto the bed and tried not to cry. It was stupid and I shouldn't be crying over it, but my feelings were already all jumbled up and this occurance didn't help me at all.

_'Caldicot... Man... I'm sorry about Lindsey... She always was too nosy for her own good, and quick to jump to conclusions. This probably doesn't mean much, but I'm not mad about it - hell, I wanted to punch that dick in the face too.'_

I didn't acknowledge that I'd actually heard her, my body beginning to shut down from emotional overload.

There was a knock at the door. "Go away." I said, loud enough that whoever it was would hear me.

"Spikes, it's Rudy. Let me in, please."

I managed to drag myself out of the bed, unlock the door, and jerk it open part-way, revealing only Rudy standing there. I sighed in defeat and let him in. He hugged me the second I did, closing the door with his foot.

"Sorry 'bout Lindsey." He said, "She's a dick sometimes."

I had to laugh a little. "I don't think I've ever heard you say 'dick' before."

"I don't say it often." He laughed too.

I liked hugging Rudy. It was like my giving my huskie back home a hug, except he was bigger and he could hug back. And his fur was softer. As easy as it was for him to get put in the 'little brother' slot because of his occasional dimwitted actions, he was actually more of a big brother, at least to me, even though he actually was younger.

"Even if the others are being dicks, Spikes, you can always count on me. I won't leave you behind just because you're acting different. You always get a little different when someone challenges your wit." He hugged tighter, "I just thought you oughta know that, even if you fall, like all queens eventually must, I'll stay by your side, no matter where your bishop and your king are."


	24. Stand Up, Even If You're Standing Alone

**A/N: Okay, after the events of last chapter, I have decided to casually skip the next couple of days. Two days later is when this is set. No make-up or apology has occurred from either side. It's a tense battle. Might update again later today.**

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Chapter 23: Stand Up, Even If You're Standing Alone

Things were still rather tense in the hideout two days later. Rudy refused tlto leave my side, and so he and Lindsey weren't speaking to each other, and I was avoiding Rajan at all costs. We had barely been together a day and we got into a fight - I wasn't liking my chances with men or women at the moment.

But things were changing within the team. Lindsey and Rajan were slowly breaking off. Rudy was getting more and more depressed. I was getting desperate, and Cooper was beside herself trying to decide between her loyalty to Lindsey and Rudy and her loyalty to me.

Shockingly, her loyalty to me was winning.

I couldn't take it anymore. As Rajan and Lindsey walked into the kitchen that morning, I didn't even stop what I was doing.

"Rudy, _please_! You're miserable! Just give it up already..." I swallowed a sob, "I'm not worth it. I don't even remember being friends with you before, at least Lindsey does! And Rajan has a reason not to understand you sometimes... My only excuse is this stupid amnesia that's apparently making me act different because I don't remember what you guys expect me to do in situations like that!"

Rudy looked me in the eye, took in all the desperation, the fear, the anguish, and shook his head. "Are you deaf, Spikes?" He asked, scoffing slightly, "I told you - I'm not gonna leave your side. Lindsey is just being a dick and she needs to get over it. So what if it's not something you would've done in the orphanage? Things change, circumstances change... _People_ change."

He hadn't noticed them walk in, apparently. Being a thief and considering they weren't like Keaton and couldn't pop up out of thin air, I of course had, but I didn't point them out.

"Rudy..."

"No, listen, Spikes. We weren't nearly as close in the orphanage as we are now. Back in the orphanage, we were just three kids trying to get by. We didn't know each other all that well. Maybe wanting to punch someone in the face was something you did do, but you never made it known? Even if it wasn't, you don't have a way of knowing and therefore neither do we. It doesn't matter anyway, right? We're friends now, and sure, sometimes you do some stuff you didn't used to.

"Everybody does that. Lindsey's a dumbass if she thought even for a second that you were always gonna be the scrawny little dickwad terror you were in the orphanage. I don't think she notices but she's done a lot of things she didn't used to, and I haven't jumped her bones and driven a rift in the team because of it. She's being way too much of a hard-ass about this."

And, almost before the sentence had completely left his mouth, Lindsey had slapped him across the face and charged out of the room. I watched her go with a mixture of surprise and anger. How dare she? He was just being honest!

Rudy and Rajan both seemed to see the dam breaking, but neither one of them could do anything to stop me when I flew past them, anger fueling every swift, brief step I took. Cooper was shouting countless profanities and she called Lindsey quite a few things I won't repeat here before randomly switching to Spanish the louder she got.

I was down the flight of stairs that led to our garage in one move, never touching any of them on the way down. Lindsey turned sharply at the sound of me landing behind her. I reigned myself in and just glared at her for the longest moment. She started to look progressively more afraid the longer I glared.

Rudy and Rajan flew down the stairs, seemingly surprised that Lindsey wasn't dead. Neither of them touched me, and just stood watching, waiting for that last piece of steel to wash away with the currents.

It never did.

Eventually, I turned my face away, letting my hair fall so they couldn't see it. "Get. Out." I said slowly, carefully. "Now."

Lindsey stared at me. They all did. They'd been waiting for some great outburst as the forest caught fire and roared with the great flames. But this was only the tiniest spark in a thornbush, not likely to do much damage at first, but cause incredible suffering the longer it was there.

"That wasn't a request. I don't want to have to hit you, but part of me is screaming at me to."

That wasn't a lie. Cooper's loyalty to me had won out quite completely and she was pissed. She, regardless of his occasional sagely wisdom, thought of Rudy as the little brother she'd never had. It didn't matter to her that it was Lindsey she was urging me to punch as hard as I could. She'd hurt Rudy a lot over the past couple days and Cooper had kept calm, but the slap was the final nail in Lindsey's coffin.

"Heh. Funny how now you"re resisting the urge to do something that we started this entire conflict about." She said snarkily.

My hand twitched out and grabbed a hold of her shirt. "But I will do it if you don't get your shit and get out."

She just scoffed and rolled her eyes.

_'All right now she's just being a snarky little bitch. Punch. Her._' Sophie insisted.

I shook my head slightly. I sighed loudly, letting go of her shirt and turning around. _Not worth the trouble. She is so not worth the trouble I'll get into if she goes to Henry for assault and battery charges._

"See? I told you she was all bark, Rajan. Always has been, always will be."

_Alright. Screw assault and battery. I'm going to prison for murder if she doesn't shut her mouth._

I took a step away, toward the stairs.

"Running away? Gee, how brave."

I spun around faster than I could really register doing it. My fist connected solidly with her jaw, and she went flying backwards. I reigned myself in again, forced myself not to follow her across the garage, not to beat her into a bloody and unrecognisable pulp for being a dick, for hitting Rudy, for egging me on.

I stood there, fists clenched so tight I thought I might rip through my gloves. "Out." I growled, lower, more threatening.

She bolted past me to collect her things. A few minutes later she left and it was me and the boys alone in the garage. Rajan began to approach me, but I spun on my heel and marched up the stairs. "I'm breaking up with you, Rajan III." I called over mh shoulder. "If you're going to take another girl's side against me I obviously didn't mean much to you anyway."

I sat at the table with my hands folded on its surface for a long time. It was Rudy who finally approached me.

"Rajan left after you broke up with him, Spikes." He said.

I nodded numbly. I was already feeling all the repercussions of not being an exact carbon copy of Sophie Cooper.

Cooper was, mirror to me as she always is, quiet and dejected. She didn't bother to say anything to me at all, but I knew she was hurting. She was regretting urging me to punch Lindsey, she thought it was her fault my anger got out of check so quickly.

"I'm not leaving." Rudy told me again.

"You should."

"I won't."

"How are you so calm?"

"One of us has to be. Obviously you're in no shape."

* * *

Sophie put her head in her hand. "I don't want to talk about the rest of this." She told the marigold haired girl in front of her who was busily typing away.

The part-way ginger stopped, looking up at her. "Please, don't tell about anything you don't want to. I just need the story, and I can most likely get those bits from your friends."

Sophie nodded. "That said... It was a few weeks later when things finally started happening."

* * *

Small villages were randomly finding themselves no longer in existence. With each massive explosion that took them out, they got closer to Paris and they got bigger. Rudy and I were on our own and I had made the executive decision that Henry was not to be contacted on the matter under any circumstances.

Rudy was constantly trying to cheer me - and by extension Cooper - up, doing stuff that usually got the two of us ROTFLOLing under normal curcumstances. He really was devoted, _really_ devoted. But with Lindsey and Rajan MIA, it felt like parts of me were missing.

I was still me, just a bit more depressed. It hurt to do anything, but of course I got up and did stuff anyway. I felt like there was a fog settled over me. I barely remember half the stuff I did.

But I do remember that when Rudy left to get some food from the store, I got a visitor. The lady in white from way back when.

"You still choose to stay? The time when you make your choice is drawing near... Will you let go of everything just for this 'Rudy' of yours?" She asked, her voice level and calm.

I nodded, "If I leave then he'll be all alone. I doubt Rajan and Lindsey will be easy for him to find..."

The lady regarded me seriously, looking me over for a long moment. "You have a good heart, Sophia Caldicot. Maybe, one day... You will get your memory back. I would be willing to allow it... For the whole reason I tried to deter you from this place was because of something that will happen in the future... And it would require all of your memories."

I blinked at her. "Thanks... I think."

She smiled slightly. "Farewell, Sophia Caldicot, and Sophia Cooper. I hope you make the right choice. When it is time, simply call me. My name is Gabie."

And then she was gone. The fog lifted slightly at that moment, and I remember what happened afterwards. Everything up until the end of the adventure.


	25. Ritchie

**A/N: Mwahahahaha! Depression! *grins like a total nutter* No, I'm not doing this because I have trouble writing cheerful characters. I'm doing this because it makes the story's rising action even more interesting!**

**So sorry this wasn't up yesterday - I had most of it written but I felt sick so I went to bed and didn't wake up until 10 this morning. *bows* Don't kill me, ye few who actually read this crap!**

**Enjoy the cute Sophie and Rudy bonding at the start of the chapter! In fact, enjoy the _whole_ chapter!**

* * *

Chapter 24: Ritchie

After my visit from Gabie the crazy lady in white, my memory clears up quite a bit. Some stuff is still sorta foggy so I'll fast forward again. It was three months after the breakup of the team. Rudy and I decided to head out to the next targeted city and possibly confront Keaton if we could. I had decided that maybe doing something like this would help me snap out of it.

Rudy didn't object.

We continued on toward the town with no trouble whatsoever, not even a wave from Henry, whom we didn't encounter though we usually would have. Rudy didn't mind my silence much anymore as I rarely talked, so it surprised him when I opened my mouth and did speak.

"I'm sorry I keep putting you through crap like this, Rudy. But I'm glad you didn't leave when I told you to."

He smiled a bit, "Don't be sorry. I don't mind, and, honestly, you keep my life interesting with the way trouble follows you around like a lost puppy."

I had to smile too, "Yeah, well, that's probably a bad thing, Rudy. If you like the trouble I manage to get into, you need to get your head checked out." I said, giving him a sidelong look.

He turned away from the road for a second and flashed me a grin, "I wouldn't be me if I wasn't a little messed up, now would I? Can you see me being normal?" I shook my head seriously. "Exactly. Now could you stop being such a Negative Nancy and smile a little more often? You're not you unless you're grinning like a cheeky idiot and spinning your cane around."

I felt so much better for that, but I was still depressed as could be. But I couldn't help 'grinning like a cheeky idiot' for most of the trip just because it made Rudy happy. I didn't spin my cane, but I don't think he was expecting me to anyway. He was satisfied with the cheeky grin that usually irritated him and the others to no end because it made me look like I was saying 'I know something you don't and I'll never tell you' - according to them, at least.

Cooper cheered up a little, too, muttering something in Spanish about Rudy being a weirdo but a funny weirdo. Don't ask how I know what she said, but I _think_ it might have something to do with the fact that we're the same person. But no matter the reason, I don't speak Spanish, I just know what she's saying most of the time.

I giggled when we finally got to the town, many hundreds of miles away from our home. Don't ask why, even I'm not sure. Maybe it was the feeling that Keaton was going to show up so I could give him a piece of my mind. I actually started humming 'Marauder's Map' by 'Ministry of Magic', a tribute band to Harry Potter. The song essentially talks about killing Peter Pettigrew.

I just substituted 'Wormtail' with 'Keaton', and I highly suggest you look that song up.

••••••••••••

True to what we had thought, Keaton indeed showed up, and I decided to hinder his progress as much as possible without him knowing it was me. I'm just a cheeky prick like that.

I stole the remote that would set the town's many hidden explosives to blow, which obviously pissed him off, first. I then started taking the explosives back to the van, where Rudy rewired them and literally turned them into fireworks by redirecting the blast into the sky instead of whatever it had been attatched to.

Keaton was fuming, trying his hardest to figure out who had taken his remote. It was hilarious, admittedly, and I used a lot of effort not laughing.

Despite how cheerful that might sound, I was still highly depressed, and I know that because my body was adamant to not do anything, so it was a constant struggle.

Eventually, Rudy had rewired all the explosives - say what you will about the brawn of the teams, he was a genius! - and I set them all back up where they had been, making my way back to where Keaton was camped. He was still there, but he had a friend.

_'Oh...no...That's Ritchie!'_ Cooper yelled. Instead of giving me time to question her, she gave me a flashback.

_"Leave Lindsey alone, you big bully!" A six year old version of Rudy yelled. He was quite adorable._

_A younger version of the man who'd been with Keaton stuck his tongue out. "What'cha gonna do about it, you baby? Gonna go running to Ms. Penelope?"_

_Rudy stomped his foot, "Just leave her alone! Ms. Penelope won't do anything anyway!"_

_Ritchie just rolled his eyes and turned back to Lindsey, who he had pinned to a wall. "Just give me the freakin' tablet, lil girl."_

_Lindsey shook her head quickly in refusal. Ritchie raised his fist to punch her, but someone caught his arm._

_"Maybe you should try picking on someone your own size, Grayson." A young -but deceivingly mature and cold - voice stated._

_He turned and brought his other hand around to punch whoever had said it, only for that hand to be caught too. Sophie Cooper stood there with a very calm expression. It was calm enough it was absolutely terrifying to me, even though she was only around eight. In the commotion, Lindsey got away and ran over to Rudy._

_"I told ya, the name's Ritchie, Sophie!" Ritchie growled, trying to get free of her grip._

_Still completely calm, she appeared to ignore him for a little while. "Lindsey, Rudy, got back to our room. Don't come out until I come back. I'll use the code so you know it's me." The two wasted no time in running up a set of stairs and slamming the door to a room. Cooper turned back to Ritchie. "Yes, Grayson, I know what you told me your name is. But I see no reason why anyone would want to be on first-name basis with you. To me, you're Grayson. And to you, I'm Cooper. We are not friends, do not call me Soph or even Sophie."_

_Ritchie just rolled his eyes, and Sophie let go of one of his arms, punching him in the gut. Hard. He let out a breath involuntarily._

_"Want to try a different answer, Grayson?"_

_Ritchie straightened himself with a gulp. "Yes, ma'am." He said._

_"Good. Now run along and torture someone else. I don't care so long as you leave Lindsey and Rusy alone." She turned away, waving in dismissal._

I was pulled back to reality at that point. I shook my head. "Well obviously he's your bitch, Cooper. What are you saying 'oh no' about?" I whispered.

_'He was still in the orphanage when it went down - he should be dead!'_

"So are you, but you don't see me complaining."

She sent me the mental image of her shaking her head at me. _'Just surprised, I guess.'_ She sighed.

I rolled my eyes and directed my attention back down to where Keaton was obviously still yelling at Ritchie Grayson. I chewed on my lip for a moment before letting out a small puff of air akin to a sigh. "I think I'll just break that up."

I made my way part-way down the slope I was on.

"-find that damn remote!" Keaton was saying.

I arched my brows, droping down silently behind him, holding up said remote and leaning back against the slope. "Oh, _this_ remote?"

Both of them looked around, startled. Ritchie saw me first, and, taking in the smirk on my face, poked Keaton and pointed to me. "I think _she_ found it for you."

"More likely that she stole it in the first place." Keaton growled in irritation. "You cause me more trouble than you're worth, Cooper."

In his eyes I could see that he was respecting my wish not to be discovered, even though he wanted to kill me.

I smirked a bit more, pulling off the 'Malfoy' smirk with ease of practice. The Malfoy smirk was relevant to this situation because it made me look like a smug bastard. "Oh, I'm _so_ sorry, Keaton. I don't mean to!" I said sweetly.

"Still to cheeky for your own good, I see. I thought you were dead, Cooper." Ritchie said.

Reminding myself to call him by his last name, I replied, "So did everyone else. Even if I barely remember you, I can't say I missed you, Grayson."

"Barely remember me?" He asked, eyebrows arching.

"Amnesia. Some punk decided it would be nice of them to bash my head into the pavement enough to give me a major concussion." I waved my hand dismissively, "He got what he deserved."

Keaton was still leering at me, "As touching of a reunion as this is, I'd like my remote back so I can set the explosives."

I shrugged and tossed it to him. "Whatever. Not like I've got anything to worry about, I'll be long gone by the time they go off anyway."

Ritchie rolled his eyes, "Same old Cooper, not giving a damn unless it involves Lindsey and Rudy. What happened to those two, anyway? Orphqnage didn't fall on 'em, did it?"

I shook my head, "Nah, I got 'em out. But Lindsey got all pissy cause I punched this bastard in the face and I was ranting about not being able to get a good hit because he's a pansy and he teleported away, so she's MIA." I tried to shrug it off, but after apparently growing up with me, Ritchie seemed to understand the depression behind my voice. "But Rudy's still with me. I don't know if you noticed, but he's not nearly as much of a wimp as I remember him being - the again, the last memory I have of him is from when he was six."

Ritchie nodded, "Yeah, Rudy got really tough after you disappeared - I don't think I've ever seen someone go from total wimp to master martial artist who can lift eight times his own weight in that short of an amount of time."

I shrugged, "I've seen you go from being an asshole to my bitch in point three seconds, I think that's more impressive."

He growled at me, but Keaton interrupted his retort. "Once again, touching as this is, if you truly wish to avoid being blown up, Cooper, I'd suggest you get moving."

I shrugged again. "Whatever. Later Keaton, Grayson."

I pounced easily up the slope in quick jumps. I heard Ritchie gasp a bit when I barely grabbed onto the top of the slope with the tips of my fingers.

••••••••••••

I smiled at Rudy as we sat in the country just a few miles from the city. In front of us, the strangely made fireworks were going off merrily. He smile back.

"Nice thinking, Soph." He said.

Right after he said it, an infuriated scream ripped through the air, obviously a curse, followed by my name. Our smiles widened considerably.

_"Really_ nice thinking." He amended, clapping me on the shoulder.


	26. It Began On A Tuesday

**A/N: Hiya! I just realized I completely skipped New Years in this story, but that's alright because Sophie obviously didn't notice either. Either way, enjoy chapter 25!**

* * *

Chapter 25: It Began On A Tuesday

"Rudy, what day is it?" I asked in an attempt to not be completely depressed.

"January 14. Why?"

"Shit! I didn't make a New Years resolution!" I said, hitting myself in the head.

Rudy stared at me for a second, eyebrow raised. "Neither did I, actually. We can make them now, you know, while the year is still young."

"Okay." I nodded, "What's yours?"

"To do everything it takes to take Keaton down, and after that take a long from heists or hits of any sort. Whenever I decide I'm done with that, we'll set out as the only two member Cooper gang in the history of Cooper gangs."

I smiled. "That's a good one... I'll go along with that, but my resolution is a bit different. I resolve to not be nearly as much of a dick to my friends."

Rudy laughed. "Yeah, let's see how long _that_ lasts." He rolled his eyes, "No offence, Soph, but you're a dick whether you mean to or not - it's in your nature."_  
_

"Okay then, I resolve to tone down the conscious dickish actions." I rolled my eyes right back.

"Much better."

••••••••••••

Keaton had, needless to say, been very pissed off about the failed destruction of the town we'd thwarted him in. It seemed that we set his plans back a whole week, which I was more than happy to do. Rudy was whistling to himself when he walked into our kitchen, swinging the van keys on his finger. In his hand was a newspaper.

He tossed it to me with a gigantic grin on his face. "Read the front page report."

I picked up the paper and examined it. On the front page there was a picture of a very shady looking Keaton, and next to it a picture of me taking down one of his bombs. Then, the biggest picture showed the Cooper Gang symbol in fireworks. The headline read, "SOPHIE COOPER: SAVIOR?"

_"Yesterday, we caught sight of some very suspicious activity - a fox walking casually away from a place that was revealed to have a bomb. When we were about to send someone in to dismantle it, trouble maker and thief extrodinaire, Sophie Cooper, showed herself and took down the bomb, only to return with it a while later and hook it back up._

_We waited with bated breath to see what would happen when it and a few others we had found went off. To our surprise - and eternal delight I daresay - instead of blowing up, the charges shot off into the air in the form of fireworks. Close inspection of the bombs show that they were tinkered with to do so. Now the question is: Who is Sophie Cooper, really, and why did she help? What are this coon's motives?"_

I laughed merrily. "Oh, Henry's gonna have a fit that I got caught, but it's totally worth it to have them questioning my motives like this."

He nodded, "I thought so too - but what do you say we set the record straight? I overheard some pompous brat at the store talking about a prized jewel he's going to have on display tonight at his house during a gala."

I grinned, "Oh hell yes I do!"

••••••••••••

Taking that jewel was like candy from a baby. The security system was second rate, none of the guests were all that bright, and tranquilizer darts are extremely easy to fire. I left, alongside my calling card, a note sitting on top of a letter.

The note said, "Give this letter to the press when the police are done with it. Read the letter if you want, but I'd prefer it stay sealed so the press doesn't question you."

Rudy left again to get more groceries for us that night, and with him gone I found no motivation to do anything but crawl to my room and go to bed.

_"That was stupid, Jacey." Damien was saying. "We are so getting our butts kicked when Carmelita sees this..."_

_I rolled my eyes, "Damien, if I was scared of my mother, I would've started running already. Her shock pistol doesn't actually hurt that much."_

_"Yeah, but that's because we grew up with her shooting us with it when we did something wrong - we practically run on electricity." Zephyr replied._

_"How she didn't kill you two doing that, I will never know." Damien shoom his head._

_"Well, she shoots dad with it often enough." I shrugged, "Maybe it's a genetic immunity based on the structure of dad's nerves that allows him to all but ignore getting electrocuted that was passed down to us?" I suggested._

_Zephyr and Damien stared at me - Damien with a 'wow, she used big words' expression and Zephyr with a 'WTF?' look._

_"I have absolutely no clue what you just said." Zephyr eventually admitted._

**Bang!**

I opened my eyes. The knocking didn't stop.

"Sophie, open this damn door!" Henry shouted.

"The door is unlocked, you dolt..." I said, "Come in, but if you're going to yell at me for those stunts I pulled, shut your mouth and go away."

The door opened slowly, and Henry raised an eyebrow. "Are you... are you feeling alright, Sophie? You look a bit...peaky."

"No, I'm not feeling alright. In case you hadn't noticed, I'm down two team members because they were being dicks and left because I wanted to punch Keaton in the face."

I glared rather lifelessly at him. He walked in, closing the door. He sat down on the edge of my bed, for once looking as old as he actually was. He ran his fingers through my bangs as the rest of my hair was in a messy braid and tilted his head to the side at me.

"So, you've only got Rudy now?" He asked.

I nodded. "But don't go trying to find me new team members. Part of his New Years resolution was us going on the be the only two member Cooper Gang."

Henry cracked a smile at me, "I always did like Rudy the most..." He shook his head, "I could tell he was the loyal type. But I guess it's fitting, seeing as he's a wolf and all. In your team, you're practically the Alpha female, though I don't know where he'd be on the chart or who the Alpha male would be..."

I smiled back a little. "Oh, he's my Beta wolf, for sure." I said, then my smile widened a bit, "The day the fight started, he gave me a loyalty speech, and made a chess reference... Something along the lines of 'Even when you fall, as all queens eventually must, I'll remain at your side, no matter where your baron and your king are' or something like that."

Henry laughed. "A knight to the end, that Rudy Wolf."

He continued to run his hand through my bangs and make small talk until I dropped off again.

I didn't dream, and when I woke up, he was gone. I shook my head and dragged myself out of bed and walked down the stairs... And right into a nightmare.


	27. Ritchie Grayson Is My Bitch

**A/N: My New Years Resolution will be revealed next chapter. Enjoy! **

**DISCLAIMER: Though I think it should be fairly obvious what I do and do not own, I figure I might as well outline it again. I do not own Sly Cooper (I would be rich and not going to this stupid school with idiot teachers if I did) or the locations present in this story. I do, however, own Sophie Cooper and Sophie Caldicot, Rajan II, Rajan III, Lindsey, Rudy, Henry, Jacey, Damien, Zephyr is my friend Emi's, Charity Dells, James Cooper, Vallen Frost, Keaton (aka 'That Dick'), Ritchie Grayson, and Gabie the crazy lady in white. The plot is property of the voices in my head. **

* * *

Chapter 26: Ritchie Grayson Is My Bitch

I walked down the stairs...And right into a nightmare.

Rudy was bound and gagged with Ritchie standing over him, kicking him repeatedly. Keaton didn't appear to be anywhere nearby, but I had no doubt he was behind this. Rudy noticed me, and I shook my head at him quickly. He made no move to show he understood, but that was a good thing. Ritchie then proceeded to grab Rudy up by his hair and pin him to a wall. He drew his fist back, but he never got to swing it at Rudy.

I caught his arm. "My, my, Grayson. For some reason this seems familiar." My tone was even just as cold as Cooper had made hers.

I also managed to keep a terrifyingly calm expression when Ritchie spun and went to hit me with the other fist. I caught it as well.

"_Very_ familiar." I said. "Rudy, go to your room and find something to get those ropes off with. Don't come out until I come up there."

Rudy nodded and made his way up the stairs, and even with his hands tied together he managed to get his door open and slam it. I turned back to Ritchie. "Yes, I believe we've definitely been in this situation before."

He spat at me, and it stopped just short of me. Cooper's mind powers are good for something, at least. So I let go of one of Ritchie's arms and punched him in the gut. Hard. He doubled over, because obviously I was a lot stronger than I was at eight - eight years does that to you.

"Wanna try a different answer, Grayson?"

He gulped and looked up at me. He didn't say anything, just licked his lips and stared at me. I glanced over my shoulder briefly, but no one was there. Surprisingly, Ritchie didn't spring at the chance to punch me. He stayed where he was.

"I asked you a question, Grayson. Do you want to try a different answer?"

"Y-yes ma'am..." He stammered. "Damn... y-you got s-scary..."

I raised an eyebrow. "Wanna run that by me again?"

"Are you g-gonna punch me if I don't?"

"Probably."

"I s-said, 'D-damn you got scary' albeit w-with a l-lot more stammering."

I nodded thoughtfully. "Then you would now be willing to admit that you're my bitch, right?"

He nodded, "I k-kind of have to. I barely listen to Keaton, but I listen to you."

"Good. Then be a good bitch and be my bug where Keaton's involved." I said.

"Let me guess... You'll punch me if I don't, right?"

"I'll kick you in your unmentionables if you don't, bitch."

He gulped and guarded said parts. "Okay, yeah, I'll be your bug."

"And if you rat me out to him, I'll kick you harder than I planned to if you said no."

That was plenty motivation for Ritchie, who nodded furiously. "Okay, no ratting you out to Keaton if I ever want children. No problem."

"Report back with this." I gave him a watch version of the Binoc-U-Com - the WatchCom.

He nodded and took it.

"Now get the hell out."

He left at my wave toward the door, still guarding his male parts. I walked up to Rudy's room.

"Rudy, you can come out now."

"Come on in - I managed to open that thing once, but I don't think I can do it again."

I opened the door and was met with Rudy sitting on his bed, hands still behind his back. His shoulders had to be killing him.

He nodded to a pocket knife on his desk and I picked it up. He got up and turned so I could cut the rope. "Uh, just so we're clear here... You're not going to stab me or anything, right? I don't exactly trust you with sharp objects after you've been dealing with Ritchie."

I rolled my eyes, though he couldn't see. "No, I'm not going to stab you, Rudy. I resolved to cut down on conscious dickish behavior towards you and Henry, remember?"

He laughed. "But what if you didn't mean to?"

"Then I wouldn't have to clear up with you that I wasn't going to stab you - I wouldn't know I was going to do it."

The ropes fell from his wrists and onto the floor. He turned back around to face me and took the knife, which I was flipping idly. After staring at me for a second, he spoke up.

"So how'd you get rid of him?"

"Surely you must know by now that Ritchie Grayson is my bitch?" I asked. Rudy raised an eyebrow. "I scare that ass to death - he'll do anything for me if he thinks I won't hit him or make him unable to have children." I shrugged, "Even be my bug in Keaton's operation."

Rudy stared at me for a second before shaking his head. "Just like you to have the toughest kid in the orphanage at your beck and call."

"Who's top dog now?" I asked, grinning and wiggling my eyebrows at him.

"You are. Definitely. I am but a humble Omega in your service."

I dropped my grin into a tender smile, "Nah, you're my Beta. No doubt about it. Ritchie is the Omega."

Rudy looked highly pleased by that remark.

And thus, we spent the rest of the day getting reports from Ritchie on what Keaton was doing, how his plans were coming along, and basically anything a bug would usually report on. It's nice having a bitch who works for the enemy, don't you think?


	28. Love, No Matter The People

**A/N: And my New Years Resolution is... *drumroll* To update this, no matter how sporadically, until its completion and complete it before I go back to school on the sixth. I have a poll on my profile that will help me decide whether or not I want to act on the second part of my resolution: to write the sequel, or not to write the sequel, that, my friends, is the question.**

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Chapter 27: Love, No Matter The People

Putting aside the fact that Ritchie Grayson, is, in fact, my bitch, Rudy and I were getting prepared to go off and face/thwart Keaton again, just to piss him off. We climbed into the van and headed back towards the town we'd previously saved which had recently - the day before we set off - finally been blown to pieces. I should've been mad, I know, but I'm not a hero - I'm not Sly, either. I couldn't care less about the greater good most of the time, and I was depressed and cynical at the time anyway.

Rudy was a little upset about it, but he didn't flip out about it or at me when he realized I didn't care. I think he probably chalked it down to my being, hey, guess what, depressed and cynical.

Anywho, we arrived at the next targetted town, watching while Keaton set up the bombs. I also, to my chagrin, saw Lindsey going about business with Rajan trailing along behind her. He looked a bit depressed, if I do say so myself. The part of me that was 'bitter ex-girlfriend' smirked and laughed at his misery. On the other hand, the piece of me that was 'depressed ex-girlfriend and friend' just sat there and watched them indifferently.

Rudy noticed them as well, and looked worriedly to me. "_Please, _for the love of all that is holy, do _not_ do anything stupid."

I shrugged. "I was just thinking that, even if I do sort of loathe them right now, they don't deserve to get blown up." I said, "...Although, part of me would be laughing its ass off about it for a while afterwards."

"Well, maybe I can warn them away..." He suggested.

I shrugged again. "Whatever."

He made his way away from the van, and they both looked over to him. I climbed into the van to wait and watch. Due to the look on Lindsey's face, I think it's safe to say she was being a snooty bitch. Rudy replied with a slightly annoyed expression, to which she continued to be a snooty bitch.

Rajan looked at me in the van, his expression showing dejection, pain, depression, and a whole boatload of other emotions. I had to force myself to remain outwardly indifferent and watch Rudy and Lindsey's confrontation. Eventually, Rudy obviously gave up trying to convince her, throwing his hands in the air and spinning around to stalk back to the van.

I didn't make eye contact with Lindsey, I just watched Rudy. "So?" I asked when he finally got into the driver's seat.

"I can't stand that woman any more now than I could in the orphanage when we were five." He said flatly.

I didn't have an answer to that, and so wisely kept my mouth shut.

"She's such a control freak all the time, and _God forbid_ anything _not_ go her way!" He was growling loudly, "And don't even get me started on her downright dickish tendencies!"

He suddenly sighed and slumped, his head falling against the sttering wheel.

"The definition of insanity is doing something over and over and expecting different results, right?" He asked. I nodded unsurely. "Then why the hell do I keep going out with her if I know she's only gonna be a total asshat all the time?"

"I don't know, Rudy... Have you considered the possibility that you might be in love with her?"

He picked his head up and tilted it to the side, his eyes wide. "Oh...my..."

"What?"

"You've told me this before. You were ten and I was eight. You told me that when I fell in love, I would probably be frustrated half the time by whoever I was falling for. That I would continually give them chances until they ended up killing me or I realized I was in love with them and told them so." He said, "Oh my freaking glob, Sophie! You predicted this and I paid absolutely no attention!"

"I did?"

He calmed himself a bit, "Yeah, you did. You said something along the lines of, 'believe me Rudy, you'll know... and I get the feeling we already know the girl you'll fall in love with.'"

I raised both my eyebrows. "I just call 'em like I see 'em, apparently. You two are relatively obvious about dating, even if you don't want me knowing."

He calmed himself completely, "Well, either way, I don't think now would be ths appropriate time for me to confess my undying love for her."

"Probably not. She looks sorta pissed."

She was glaring at us steadily, and oh, if looks could kill.

"Seeing as how you just realized you're in love with her, I guess running her over isn't an option?" I frowned at him.

"Nice try, Sophie."

"A girl can dream, can't she?"


	29. Fun, Fun, Fun

**A/N: Alright, enjoy! I fell asleep and therefore did not get this written all the way through or posted. Just a few more chapters, you guys. Vote on my poll, please, I need input because I don't know if I want to go through with writing the sequel...**

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Chapter 28: Fun, Fun, Fun

Our conversation seemingly done, we found a place to camp out on the outskirts of town, since experience showed Keaton took forever to put up bombs. We decided that Rudy follow me into Keaton's current hideout only after I had gotten in safely and could give him directions. Rudy insisted I do it the next day instead and that I sleep off some of my depression if I could.

I say our conversation was only seemingly done because Rudy brought the subject up again while we were eating. Rudy is a smart guy, but apparently he's clueless on stuff like that, and Cooper isn't but oh well. Obviously he wanted to talk to me about it.

"So, Sophie... You know how we were discussing my... how did I put it? 'Undying love' for Lindsey?" He asked.

"Yeah...?"

"I was sorta wondering... And you don't have to answer this question if you don't want to... Were you in love with Rajan?"

For a minute I stared at my plate. I wasn't sure how to proceed, but eventually I got my courage up and decided to answer.

"Yeah... I am. Unfortunately, you don't just fall out of love with people because you break up with them because they're a dick. Chances are you already knew they were a dick and you just didn't want to acknowledge it."

Rudy nodded. "I know that's still probably a sore subject, so I'll just drop it."

I smiled, "You're awesome, you know that?"

That fog I keep mentioning kept getting thicker the longer I thought about Rajan and Lindsey, almost completely imparing my ability to care what we were talking about. Maybe by changing the subject I could keep it from getting too bad.

Wishful thinking, I know.

He smiled back at me, "Only according to you, my queen, but you're the boss."

Aw, if he kept using chess references and calling me a queen I might just fall out of love with Rajan and convince Rudy he was in love with me instead. But that would be weird. Rudy was obviously very devoted to Lindsey or he would never put up with her. I only barely put up with her and that's because most of the time her control-freak attitude couldn't shake my decisions and she usually listened to me.

"I swear, Rudy, if you keep using chess references I'm going to pounce on you and tickle you to death." I said instead.

He laughed and actually had the gall to ruffle my hair and send me to bed. I just rolled my eyes and said something along the lines of 'yes, oh great one' with a whole boatload of sarcasm dripping from it. But neither of us really minded the reversed roles most of the time. I was perfectly fine, as mentioned some time ago, with him being the big brother figure. I could handle shirking my responsibilities every once in a while.

••••••••••••

The next morning I awoke with a leaden feeling in my limbs, which was normal nowadays. And, also normal, I shook off the feeling and got up despite my body's obvious wish to stay in bed. I wasn't going to let depression keep me down, as I've probably already proved.

I followed Keaton back to his current hideout with ease of pratice, and was shocked to see Lindsey and Rajan chained up. They saw me but I pretended to be entirelu focused on followimg Keaton to sabotage his bombs. Interestingly, he had his bombs in his command center, which was free of any guards or anything of the like, but also showed where all his guards were currently.

As soon as he was gone I set about guiding Rudy in, actually managing to keep him clear of Lindsey and Rajan and all the guards. Who's bad, I ask you?

_Anyway_, that dealt with, I kept a lookout for Keaton while Rudy disabled the bombs. Of course, I forgot that Keaton could just teleport in any time he wanted. He abused that fact and once again popped up behind me, completely ignoring or not noticing Rudy, who was going about his business quietly enough that Keaton wouldn't hear him over the sound of his own voice.

"Cooper." He said curtly.

I covered up my jump with a reply, "Keaton."

"You have given me many reasons to curse your name, Racoon."

"Good! I hope I give you thousands more!" I replied, still watching the monitors.

"Oh, I have no doubt you will." He paused, "What are you doing?"

"I'm not sure myself. I just have this overwhelming urge to stare at these screens - I get the strangest feeling something's gonna go horribly wrong with your stuff and I won't be the one doing it." I frowned. I was telling the truth, honestly.

And then it happened - Rajan busted himself and Lindsey out of their confinement all of a sudden. They came running toward the control room.

"...I have to admit, I did _not_ see that coming." Both Keaton and I said at the same time.

"Rudy, time's up!" I yelled, "Wrap it up!"

Keaton finally noticed my wolf friend, who had just finished tinkering. He looked confused as to what he was doing, as he was nowhere near the bombs anymore. Then he saw the remote in Rudy's hand. He lunged at Rudy right as Lindsey and Rajan ran through the door. Rudy ducked past Lindsey and took off at top speed away from the control room and as far away as possible. That was the part of the plan I'd had to fight with him on over and over.

But I didn't even have to follow through with the next part - distracting him - because Lindsey and Rajan did that all by themselves. Obviously Lindsey only wanted to help Rudy, but Rajan was probably hoping to get back into my good graces.

"Get going, Ringtail! We can handle this chump." Lindsey said.

I had no qualms running past them and off in the opposite direction from where Rudy went. I didn't know where I was going, but I could improvise. Then Ritchie showed up.

He was wearing some sort of armor, which made it obvious that my intimidation tactics wouldn't work anymore. I just stopped dead, and he came at me. I didn't know what he would do in this situation, so I stood there to wait.

His fist hit me on my right cheek, and it sent me tumbling/flying across the room. But the pain did something to my brain. The leaden feeling disappeared from my limbs, and even though I was just laying on the ground, I could feel something... My muscles were humming with stored up energy, my very bones vibrating with all the power I had managed to save up unknowingly.

I waited.

Ritchie came to see why I hadn't gotten up yet, and as soon as he was within range, I flipped up onto my feet and punched him right back, hard enough it put a crack in his armor. He stared at me, slight fear showing on his face. I roundhoused him to get the fight back in action. I didn't have the Cooper cane with me, but I did have my old knife still sheathed on my hip.

With the drawing of my knife, Ritchie hightailed it, but I wasn't having that. The knife was tossed, just barely knicking him but causing him to fall either way.

The knife stuck into the ground next to him and I picked it up, lightly holding the tip against the base of his skull.

"Any exits in this area, Grayson?" I asked.

"Right down the hallway I was guarding." He said nervously.

He should've worn a helmet, I think. But I pulled the knife awah from the base of his skull, flipped it around, and knocked him unconscious, snatching the WatchCom off his wrist.

I took off down the hallway he'd been guarding and burst out the door.


	30. Free For All

**A/N: Oh, wow... so few chapters left... If you count the prologue, I have officially beaten my goals of how long this story would end up being... 30. 29 without the prologue, but for once, I feel as if the prologue actually counts for something...**

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Chapter 29: Free For All

As soon as I got out the door, I vowed I would kick Ritchie Grayson's ass. Sure, it was an exit, but it was an exit from the building into an arena type area. No wonder he sounded so damn nervous. Sophie grumbled something in what I assume was the Demonic Tongue, but I have no clue. I don't even know what she said!

My body was still charged, I could still definitely feel the energy thrumming through my veins, muscles, bones...Even my skin felt positively energized. But after only feeling like a lead anvil - you know, the 'ACME' ones that they drop on the cartoon characters? - for so long it's only to be expected. Surprisingly, after I ran into the arena, the door slammed shut, and another one opened, spilling Lindsey, Rajan, and Keaton in. That one closed too, and Rudy stumbled out of a third door.

...Okay, so maybe I _wouldn't_ kick Ritchie's ass. It seemed I would've ended up in there anyway. I frowned, wrinkled my nose for a second, and then decided to put the overwhelming energy I felt to good use. Lindsey, Rajan, and Keaton were all dazed, so I bolted past Rudy and flipped over the other two, grabbing Keaton's shoulders when I almost continued on past him. My body arched painfully at the stop, starting to head toward the ground. I used it to my advantage, using my momentum, sheer inertia, and gravity to toss Keaton when my feet hit the ground.

Obviously, this arena was supposed to be used for tournaments and the like, because there were seats/stands. Why do I mention this? Because Keaton took out a _very_ large section of them when he hit. I almost burst into a fit of giggles at the Yu Yu Hakusho vibes I was getting. Dark Tournament, anybody?

Lindsey approached me to say something, but I held my hand up to her. "Whatever you're going to say, I'm sure it can wait. He's not going to be happy when he gets up."

She looked taken aback, but nodded. It was just as well, because an unintelligable bellow erupted from the stands. Keaton came out of the dust. He was obviously extremely pissed at me, which I could understand. After all, I'd be pissed too if somebody roughly half my height threw me hard enough to break through solid concrete.

Okay, so he only had a couple feet on me, but he was still really tall and I felt rather insignificant.

Anyway, Keaton rushed at me, and oh my freaking glob he was fast! I barely dodged, but I did roundhouse him. He stumbled toward Rudy, who came to his rather jumbled senses quickly and punched him in the face. He stumbled back in mine, Lindsey, and Rajan's direction. All three of us got out of the way as quickly as possible, although I really wanted to kick him in the ass a few times.

It seemed I was his main focus, though, so I would probably get my chance. He came at me again, and I held my ground, catching him by the shoulders and pushing back. He lost his foot for a second, still managing to topple into me. We tumbled around for a while, punching each other and kicking, pulling hair, biting, and basically just trying to rip each other to shreds. When he finally pinned me down, both of us were bleeding in more than one place.

His nose was broken, his cheek was bitten through - my fault obviously -, and a few bloody strands of his hair were clenched in my fist. I myself had bloody bite wounds all down my arms, some of which were his fault, some of which were mine, and I was relatively sure more than one of my ribs was broken.

He raised a fist to punch me, but I used that moment of carelessness to firmly place both of my feet on his stomach and I pushed as hard as I could, sending him flying a fair ways. I flipped back onto my feet, trying to ignore the protest my ribs gave me, and rushed at him instead of letting him get up. He did, though, and met me halfway, both of us slamming our fist into the other's face. Keaton's got a nice right hook, if I do say so myself.

Rudy suddenly came out of nowhere and tackled Keaton. The punch had sent us both flying, and I felt arms like steel bands wrap around me in order to catch me. They released me the second my feet touched the ground again, and Rajan rushed past me to assist Rudy while Lindsey approached me and I caught my breath.

"Here." She said quietly, quickly bandaging my arms. "I know they'll probably get screwed up because I know you're going to fight more, but they should stem the bleeding a bit."

I nodded my thanks, which she seemed to understand and she stepped aside, motioning me back into battle. I wasn't one to need to be told twice. Rudy and Rajan seemed to be having trouble holding back long enough for Lindsey to patch me up a bit, but now she was done, so I returned Rajan's favor by catching him when Keaton threw him and set him down to run straight back into battle.

Keaton then snapped his fingers and my companions were thrown into the stands and a forcefield kept them from getting back into the actual arena. I flew at him quickly, once again being met somewhere in the middle with a hasty punch to the face. But this time I didn't manage to land one, so he was free to come after me. I landed in a catlike crouch, pulling my legs through the air and under me.

I evaded him narrowly, moving past him and halfway across the stadium before I turned around.

"You're stronger than you look, Cooper." Keaton said, his voice rather calm considering how angry he'd been not a minute before.

"Yeah, I get that a lot." I replied. I was winded, to say the least, and that's putting it lightly. "I didn't expect you to be quite so strong either. You don't seem the fighting type."

Neither of us moved from where we'd stopped.

"I'm usually not, Cooper, but you are a special case. Lucky you."

"Yay me." I said sarcastically.

He laughed. "Prepare to die, Cooper. Because if you lose, I _will_ kill you."


	31. Calamity

**A/N: Oh my... Holy... Chapter 30, not counting the prologue... The final battle... Oh...my... Just... Wow.**

**WARNING: I. Am. Crap. At. Fighting. Scenes. I don't get into fights very often, and when I do I'm not thinking - I'm throwing punches and so is the other person, and we're, as said last chapter "just basically trying to rip each other to shreds." So, most likely horrible final battle scene...**

**On a different note, my left fist has three open wounds on it, it's bruised, and it's swollen. Hurts like nothin' else, I tells ya!**

**Also _An Amber Pen_, this chapter is for you, darling! I saw you had reviewed and just had to continue... So here, you get to know what happens! I hope it lives up to whatever expectations you have for this story - and final battles in general.**

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_He laughed. "Prepare to die, Cooper. Because if you lose, I **will** kill you."_

Chapter 30: Calamity

I tried to summon up a smirk, but it wasn't quite there. "Bring it on, Keaton. I won't lose."

But I didn't sound cocky. I sounded like I was seriously hoping I would win, but I wasn't too convinced that I was. He smirked at my obvious lack of confidence, looking for all the world like I was sort of hoping I could. Obviously, he wasn't too worried.

"You don't sound very sure of that, Cooper."

And then he was running at me. I didn't have time to dodge, block, or anything that could've possibly saved me. He didn't back off after the initial punch, either. He just kept coming at me in a flurry of punches and kicks that were too fast for me to keep up with. He continually hit me much like one might tenderize a steak. Needless to say, I was in pain.

And again I was getting serious Yu Yu Hakusho vibes. As far as I was concerned, Keaton was Younger Toguro, who had somehow stolen Hiei's speed. Those of you who have never seen Yu Yu Hakuso - don't worry. I think it can explain itself relatively well if you think carefully.

Eventually he backed off, smirking that damn smirk, and I just growled. I was still bleeding profusely from my arms, and my entire abdomen was almost certainly one big bruise. He seemed to be waiting for me to make a move, but I refused to do so. I wiped a bit of blood from the corner of my mouth and glared at him.

He came at me again, just as fast. But I was expecting it this time. I felt my muscles tightening dangerously, poised to spring. Just when he got close enough I lunged out of the way and cartwheeled to a safe distance. I decided that if he was going to use his unfair speed to an advantage, I was going to do so with something else.

As far as he knew, I disappeared. He looked around frantically for me.

"Come on, Cooper, I know you can't run in that state..." He said, turning around and around.

_Heh. Shows what he knows._ I thought. In my boredom earlier that year, I had completely perfected the invisibility move. Now I could go invisible when being watched, and I could most certainly _run_. I grinned to myself and stalked behind him, coming seemingly out of nowhere with an uppercut. I disappeared again, and he swung for where I'd been, meeting nothing but air.

I kicked him in the shins, not letting go of the trick. I continued to assault him invisibly, grinning all the while. He was starting to almost have as many injuries as me. Just for good measure, when he was looking for me I latched my teeth onto his wrist, breaking the skin. I heard/felt a crunch as well, so that was satisfying.

"Fight me for real, Cooper! Only a coward sneaks around to avoid getting hurt!"

"And only an idiot takes too many chances in a fight that's quite obviously unfair!" I shot back, moving quickly.

He slammed his fist down, hitting only stone. I heard a few of his knuckles break and I had to wince. Hand injuries were nothing to joke about. He let out a long string of curses - whether because his knuckles were broken or because he'd missed again, I couldn't quite be sure.

I finally let go of the trick, kicking him in the buttocks. He yelped and spun quickly, but I had the solution to that too. I had mercilessly practiced the Slow move until I could move at normal speed while performing it. I felt stupid for not remembering earlier, but that's what happens when there's a freaky fast guy trying to punch you.

The rest of the fight - er, that part of the fight - was spent with us going at it while I performed the Slow move. Rudy later told me we were little more than blurs and he couldn't keep track of us. Even though Keaton was under the influence of the move since he wasn't me, he still moved at a semi-regular speed.

We were still beating every kind of anything we could out of each other, biting occasionally when we could get away with it. I ripped out some more of his hair at one point too.

When I couldn't keep the move going, I kicked him as hard as possible in the groin - a place I usually avoid doing such things to because my father told me that a man's nuts are something you don't mess with. He made me promise I'd only kick or punch a man there if it was necessary - I'd say it was.

He crumpled and I made sure to continue wailing on him, even though I kept thinking how underhanded it was. This was a death match, apparently, so I didn't really have a choice. Eventually he fell limp, and I poked him with my foot to make sure of his unconsciousness. He didn't move.

I continued to stand there for a minute, licking my lips, on which I could taste a mixture of my blood and Keaton's. He didn't even seem to be breathing. I just stood there, clenching my fists. They were swollen and bloody from the constsnt abuse they had taken against his leather jacket. I had a few new crude bite marks from him.

Rudy, Lindsey, and Rajan approached me warily from the stands. They looked sort of scared of me, but they relaxed a bit when I didn't move as Lindsey poked Keaton with her toe as well. Still no response whatsoever.

"So... let's clarify... I just beat a guy to death?" I asked, licking my lips again.

Lindsey nodded a bit. "Seems that way."

I blinked. Once. Twice. And then the shaking started. My entire body quivered for a moment before I let out a nervous laugh. Then a little more. The others stared at me like I was nuts - and for the moment I say I was.

"I...just...beat a guy to death! Me! How do you manage to kick a guy's ass so bad be dies from it with pencil arms, I ask you?" I held up my arms, which were still banadaged, and waved them around a little.

Then, out of nowhere, my eyes rolled back in my head and I fainted.


	32. Aftermath, Part 1 Recovery

**A/N: Just a few more chapters until completion! The reunions, the make-ups, the minor ass-kickings, the repurcussions for staying! Oh, how I will miss writing this baby...**

**If you want me to write the sequel, vote on my poll. If you don't care, vote on my poll. If you are downright against it, vote on my poll. *shrugs* I'm not too particular.**

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Chapter 31: Aftermath, Part 1 = Recovery

I woke up on an unfamiliar bed in an unfamiliar room for the second time in my life. But unlike last time, I was injured. I didn't even have to sit up to know that. I could feel the pain thrumming through every nerve in my body. For a moment, I just laid there and tried to figure out where the hell I was. I didn't actually have to wait too long to finoout, surprisingly.

I heard a door open and then a familiar voice say, "Oh, good, you're finally awake. I'll be right back with some food." A moment later they returned. "Good to see your eyes open, Cooper."

Ritchie Grayson was smiling down at me. He had sat the food down on some table or something, and just stood there smiling. It wasn't smug, or evil, or even really a very Ritchie-like smile.

"I would try and threaten you into telling me why I'm laying in a bed obviously in your care, but I get the feeling I couldn't scare anything right now." I stated honestly.

He laughed, really laughed, at me. "Well, I woke up after you knocked me out and ran outside just in time to see you passing out. Rudy barely caught you." He waggled his finger at me, "This is why you shouldn't beat people to death, Cooper. You have nervous breakdowns about it and end up in your old rival's house with no clue why."

I rolled my eyes at him.

"Anyway, Rudy sorta begged me to help you guys and I figured 'hell, why not. She got rid of Keaton for me, after all.' Not gonna screw that up just to be an ass." He shrugged. "Hungry?"

"Duh."

He didn't make a comment on my attitude, probably writing it off as a defense mechanism or something. He instead very carefully helped me sit up, propping me up on some pillows so I could still be lazy. He sat a tray of food down on my lap, and I surprisingly managed to move well enough start eating. When he went to leave, I spoke up.

"Hey...Grayson?" I asked.

He stopped and turned toward me, raising an eyebrow. "What is it, Cooper?"

I smiled. "You can call me Sophie - if you want to."

He smiled back. "Alright then... Sophie."

••••••••••••

I was sitting in the bed Ritchie had basically brought me back from the dead on. I ran my hands over the bloodstained sheets, something in me recognizing a lot of it as mine. I sighed, swinging my feet. Obviously he'd gone through a lot of trouble to help me.

Occasionally he would send Rudy up to help me with stuff he wasn't quite sure about. The awesome thing about Rudy is he knows all about certain girl problems, and he is more than happy to bring you pads and chocolate. Ritchie refused to acknowledge that I was a woman a lot of the time, and would not help me when 'the rag' rolled around.

Rudy just laughed at him and told him to man up before throwing a pad at his face. I had wanted to laugh, so bad, but I was recovering from broken ribs, so that wasn't a good idea. Cooper did it for me for a long time.

Ritchie, speak of the devil, walked into the room. He smiled at me, reminding me that I now had an excellent locksmkth on my team and a best friend to throw on top of that.

"How's it goin'?"

I shrugged indifferently. "Eh, I've been better, I've been worse." I replied.

He nodded, "I think all of us know that feeling." He was silent a moment before sighing. "I know we've only been friends a short time - a month, tops - but I really do care about you, Sophster."

There it was. That annoying nickname that he always called me nowadays. "And I care about you too, Rich - but what are you getting at?"

He sighed again, "Rajan wants to talk to you." He admitted, "But... He's already hurt you once and I don't know the full details but Rudy says he was being a dumbass... I don't like him. I don't like his attitude, I don't like his shifty little eyes - the eyes are the window to the soul you know."

Ritchie looked honestly stricken about the situation. It was hardly, as he said, a month before that I had been calling him my bitch and intimidating him into things. Now it was almost like I had another older brother figure, and I could definitely live with that.

"Rich-a-doodle, I'm touched that you care so much that he hurt me, but like Rudy said - he was being a dumbass. I blame Lindsey more for the situation itself. If she hadn't made a big deal out of something so small as wanting to punch Keaton in the face, Rajan wouldn't have taken her side because he was worried about the outcome. You know how I get in conflicts."

Ritchie grimaced at my use of 'Rich-a-doodle', but decided to not call me out on using the childish nickname. "So... should I tell him to come on up?"

"Yeah. Just - you mind helping me put my shirt on? It's one thing for my best guy friends to see me shirtless, but it is completely different for my ex-boyfriend."

Shirt was off because of the need to change my middriff bandages, you guys. Just thought I'd clear that up. I had on a bra, too, so...

"Yeah, no problem. Arms up." He was smiling gently again as he pulled the shirt over my head. "I'd say I'm big brother material, wouldn't you?"

"I already consider you one." I replied.

I went to reach for my braid to yank it out from under the shirt, but he beat me to it and gently tugged it out. He looked over me carefully for a few moments before nodding. "I'll just go tell him he can come up."

And he left the room. A moment later, Rajan poked his head in the door. I motioned him inside.

"So... Ritchie told me you wanted to talk to me?"

"Sophie, I am so sorry I'm such a dumbass, we were barely together a day and I totally screwed up because I was worried about you and Lindsey was completely unrelenting and there I go shifting the blame to Lindsey because I can't seem to quash my pride enough to admit I was comompletely wrong - !"

"Rajan." I interrupted his extremely long run-on sentence. "You seem to be doing a great job admitting you did something wrong to me. Lindsey is actually more guilty than you are because she's a dick. I've known her forever and she can't seem to grasp that people change."

He stared at me for a minute. "...But... There's no hope for us getting back together, is there?" He asked.

I gave him a sad look, "Sorry, but you're right." I shook my head, "If we still feel the same when we're older and smarter, then maybe, but..."

He just nodded sadly, "I understand. Really, I do. We're both young and relatively stupid about a lot of things... Maybe as we get older we'll figure all this stuff out."

A silent agreement passed between us and he got up to leave without another word. To be honest, when I had told him we couldn't get back together, it felt like my heart shattered into a thousand pieces. But he accepted it, and a few pieces managed to fit themselves back together.

I shook my head slightly and removed my shirt again, laying back down.

••••••••••••

It was a few weeks later when Ritchie finally decided I was healed enough to actually be up and moving around consistently. I was glad for it, and followed him down the stairs with my tail swishing happily behind me.

"Okay, you should be able to get right back to what you usually do, now, Ringtail." He said to me. "But take it easy."

I nodded boredly from where I was standing at the back door, waiting for clearance. He rolled his eyes and waved me out. I barely held in a squeal as I stumbled out into the backyard to train. I grinned like an idiot as I once more practiced all the techniques I had ever learned, making sure I was still a capable thief.


	33. Aftermath, Part 2 Making Up

**A/N: Two chapters after this... And then the epilogue... Oh my goodness... Vote on my poll or put it in a review, whether or not you want me to write the sequel.**

**And yeah, this is super-duper short, I know. But I couldn't figure out how to make it longer... 0.0! OMG I CAN'T BELIEVE THOSE WORDS JUST CAME OUT OF MY MOUTH! **

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Chapter 32: Aftermath, Part 2 = Making Up

After I was satisfied with my training results for the day, Ritchie insisted I go talk to Lindsey. I didn't want to, but I could admit we needed to heal this rift in the team. So he accompanied me to the hideout, and literally told Rajan and Rudy to shoo so Lindsey and I could talk. They grumbled a lot, but did so, especially after I just told them to beat it before I beat _them._ Yeah, they didn't complain when Ritchie led them away.

Lindsey fidgeted a little and both of us sat at the kitchen table, unsure how to proceed. It was highly uncomfortable.

"I'm sorry I was such a dick!" Lindsey suddenly burst out.

She bit her lip and waited for my reaction. I blinked owlishky before slowly nodding. "I accept your apology... And I'm sorry for punching you in the face..." Under my breath I added, "Even though you deserved it."

She laughed, having heard me. "I accept your apology too...Do we hug now, or something?"

I shrugged and we gave each other an awkward hug over the table.

"Well... That was easier to remedy than I thought it would be." I said, sitting back down completely.

Lindsey nodded, "Yeah. I thought for sure you were going to be stubborn and tell me exactly where I could stick my apology."

I had to laugh, "I would do that, wouldn't I?" I asked.

So we broke into a fit of giggles for a few minutes.

"So, how exactly did you convince Ritchie Grayson to be your bug in Keaton's operation?" Lindsey eventually asked.

"Okay, so... The whole my not wanting to punch people in the orphanage thing?" She tilted her head to the side, "A complete lie, if what I randomly remembered upon seeing him is correct." She continued to look confused. "Apparently, I had him scared straight where I was involved ... Because I punched him. A lot. He's still sort of scared of me and he values his, ah, family jewels. And thus he listens to me when I punch him in the gut and threaten his manhood."

She stared at me for a second before she burst out laughing again. "...Ritchie...Scared of... You..." She sobered up enough to continue. "I... Should've been expecting... You to have the biggest bully in the orphanage as your bitch. It's always the skinny, non-nerdy chicks you have to look out for."

I smirked.

Eventually the boys peeked back into the room and looked shocked to see us dissolving into a fit of giggles over a picture on my old laptop, which as stated at Christmas she had stolen - hence my need for a new one, which I got for Christmas.

After a while, they joined us in looking over thr pictures of us when we were first starting out our career. Most of the ones I was in, I was flipping her off because I hate having my picture taken. The first picture of Rajan had all five of us on the floor, including him. He looked so confused and just downright adorable, even according to Ritchie.

Yeah, I'd say we'd all made up.


	34. Henry Is Pissed

**A/N: One chapter and le epilogue... Damn... *squeals like a fangirl and has a spazz attack* I have never written a decent story that was this long! Sure, I wrote a couple decent ones, but they were only ten chapters or so.**

**Vote! I would like to be able to make my decision before the sixth.**

**Oh, and _An Amber Pen_, you're not the only one who feels special! ^_^ You have officially made me very very happy. And now I'm the one blushing...0\\\0**

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Chapter 32: Henry Is (Understandably) Pissed

After we finally picked ourselves up off the floor, I got Ritchie situated at the hideout and into a room of his own. He made a few trips between his house and the hideout for the rest of the day, and thus we _officially_ had the fifth member of our Cooper gang.

"Well, resolutions are meant to be broken, I suppose." Rudy had murmured with a smile.

We spent quite a bit of that day helping Ritchie move some of his stuff, but I insisted he not put furniture in his room yet. He was confused until I went to my room and came back out with a large assortment of buckets of different colored paint. He chose one and allowed me to really just have my way otherwise.

By the time I got done being a total Leonardo Da Vinci rip-off, I had painted a mural of him in his armor on the wall perpendicular to his door. The rest of the room was a pale lavender and his ceiling had a mural of the night sky. See why I called myself a Leonardo Da Vinci rip-off yet?

He admired my handiwork with no small amount of awe. He looked completely stupefied and at a loss for words. After quite some time of staring in great admiration at the room, he turned to me with the faintest hints of a blush beneath his cinnamon fur.

"I can't look that awesome in my armor..." He said, "I think maybe you've gotten a little overly artistic."

I shook my head. "Nah. You do look that awesome."

••••••••••••

We spent that night laughing and playing board games and other such time consuming things.

"You should probably talk to Henry." Lindsey said before went to bed, "He's probably not very happy with you."

I groaned at the thought of how much he was probably going to yell at me for almost getting killed. "Henry can roughly insert a sword into his sphincter for all I care at the moment. I don't think I can deal with his bitching."

Lindsey rolled her eyes, but didn't pursue the matter further. She just took off to bed. Ritchie, who would be spending the night with me to let the paint in his room dry, didn't seem to mind my word choice. He flopped onto my couch to sleep and I shook my head.

"No. You're sleepin' on the bed, Rich. I don't care what you say about it, you're a guest in my room and therefore get the bed."

He started to protest, but I picked him up off the couch and dumped him on the bed. He stared at me for a moment while I collapsed onto the couch.

"You have really small arms, so how...?"

I shrugged, "No clue."

••••••••••••

Henry was, as Lindsey predicted 'not very happy' when I saw him the next day. He was sitting out front of our hideout and I made my way to him, even though he had a very pissed off expression on his face. I could really understand the expression, and why he was angry, but that didn't mean I wanted to be near him at all.

His glare hardened the closer I got to his cruiser, and his scowl deepened. I knew I was about to get a tongue-lashing from him. And I also knew that if I played it right he'd apologize for the tongue lashing. Henry's my older cousin, and he's really just a big softie, no matter what you think of him. That being said, he hates seeing people cry or depressed or even remotely upset. And I, dick that I just naturally am, have no problem putting on the waterworks.

"Sophia Angelo Cooper." He began angrily, "You are an idiot! Do you have any idea what could've happened to you had you not beaten him? What if you had lost?! What then, Sophie? Do you ever think anything through? You're even more irresponsible than James was!" He was seething. His teeth were bared and I thought I might actually, truly cry. "You have no clue how disappointed I am in you for just rushing in there without a plan of action once circumstsnces changed and it turned into a death match! Honestly Sophie, even Sly would've thought that through more carefully than you did!"

...Ouch... That was... ow.

"And don't you even try the tear card on me this time, Sophie." He snapped.

I reached up and wiped away the tears in my eyes, but they just kept coming. I wasn't trying to cry, which ticked me off because usually it took more to set me off. _Disappointed_. My mind reminded me. _He's disappointed in you_.

"Sophie." He warned.

"I'm not! Honestly..." I snapped back for a second and continued trying to wipe away the continual tears. "That actually...that actually hurt."

I barely avoided sobbing outright, forcing myself not to. I forced my breathing to stay as even as possible, and I swallowed hard. Henry did his best to ignore it.

"You have absolutely no common sense, do you?" He asked harshly, "What the hell were you thinking? Oh, right, you weren't, were you?" His voice was getting back some of the conviction.

"I did think during that death match, Henry!" I snapped back, still crying. "I wouldn't be alive if I didn't! You're yelling at me about how Keaton could've killed me and I can understsnd that, because he came real close! The only reason I'm still standing here today is because I actually used my head for once...And you're wasting my very valuable time screaming at me because you _think_ I wasn't thinking?!"

I was fully prepared to turn on my heel and stalk up to the hideout. Henry shrank back a bit.

"God...Sophie...You actually _are_ crying..." He said.

"What a lovely observation, thank you, _Sherlock."_ I growled.

"Come here..." He opened the door of his cruiser and opened his arms.

I stubbornly avoided doing so, shaking with the effort of not sobbing. Eventually, Henry got out of his cruiser and stepped over to me, and I took a step back, glaring at him. He sighed before stepping forward a little quicker than I could bsck up and pulled me into his arms.

"Sorry. I know how you usually are and I guess I didn't stop to consider the fact that you might've actually not been acting like an idiot. Sorry."

I didn't try to get away, but I didn't hug back either. I stood completely still while he rubbed my back. All of a sudden, he tugged me closer and squeezed tightly.

"I'm an ass, I know. And I'm sorry." He said again.

I couldn't help it. My anger gave way and I wrapped my arms around him and sobbed into his chest. Grandfatherly as he was, he only stroked my back and shushed me carefully.

"Sorry...It's okay...I'm sorry..."

It took a while for me to calm down, and when I did I got angry again. Henry let go of me and stepped back to look at me. I remembered exactly why I'd been crying in the first place, and I was still angry about it even if I'd cried all the tears I had on the matter. I didn't give a second thought to what I considered.

I pulled my fist back and I punched him in the face. To my surprise, he didn't get angry about it. He just stood there for a second, his head turned slightly away, before slowly turning back to me.

"...I deserved that..." He finally said.

And then I grabbed him and hugged him again. He hugged back and we had a mutual understanding that everything was just fine between us, despite what had just occured.


	35. Gabie, the Crazy Lady In White

**A/N: Last real chapter, since the epilogue will be rather... non-action-y. More...symbolism and stuff... I guess... Golly, I'm articulate today!**

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Chapter 34: Gabie, the Crazy Lady In White

Even though everything was settling down quite nicely, I knew something was missing. It wasn't a relationship with Rajan, or a consistent lack of hostility between Ritchie and I, it was something completely different. I'll give you three guesses as to what it was.

If you guessed 'My decision to stay or leave being officially made to Gabie', you were right.

One day, weeks after everything was finally normal again, I decided to talk to her. I left early in the morning - probably around six thirty - and placed a note on the table saying something about a need for fresh air, and that I would probably be back after lunch. For the first time in a while, I climbed into my van and started it, driving away by myself.

I don't know why, but I drove up to the old orphanage. There was nothing there now... Except for a small sapling right in the middle of the hill's crest. I flashed back to the apple core I had tossed there, smiling a bit. Then I sighed and shook my head. I looked around and got out of the van, examining everything and taking in the barely-above-the-horizon sun, which gave the whole situation a surreal feeling.

Not wanting to forget the scene, I got out a camera and positioned myself so that the sun would seem to be the center of the shot, but it was really the sapling. I smiled more before sighing yet again and stowing awah the camera.

"Gabie? I'm ready to make my decision."

She appeared out of nowhere, as she had twice before. But I was paying attention amd so wasn't startled by her sudden appearance. She gave me a slight twitch of her lips, which I assume was her version of a smile.

"And what do you choose, Sophia?" She asked politely.

I smiled back at her and looked around. "...I think you know, after everything I've done, all the people I've bonded with, exactly what my answer is... But if you need to hear it clearly - I want to stay."

She twitched her lips again. "Yes, I suppose I expected that answer. I will give you one last day to remember everything, and then it will be gone, and as far as you will know, I will no longer exist."

I nodded in affirmation, and she reached forward and stroked my cheek gently.

"You never even considered going home, even though you had family and friends... You truly are something special, Sophia Angelo Caldicot. I have never met someone so... strange."

I smiled a bit brighter as she disappeared, leaving me with only the faint wisp of a memory of her hand on my cheek, stroking in a motherly fashion.

Eventually I sat down on the grass and just watched the sun rise, falling into memories of my life before. Memories of my friend Emi and I drawing pictures and writing stories together. Memories of Tristan and I making drug related jokes and having innuendo laced conversations just because he was a guy and it was hilarious watching everyone else squirm when I, a female, went along with his jokes. Memories of my mother reading over stories and my father and I mock fighting, hitting each other playfully.

But, most of all, memories of my worries and woes from the beginning of my adventure. Thinking back brought them all to mind again. Had I just spontaneously gone missing? Was Emi freaking out, thinking I was off fighting Kronos with Percy Jackson? How was Tristan fairing, not having a crazy best friend to make marijuana jokes with that wouldn't think he was serious when he joked about going home and getting high? Was he actually doing that now that I was gone? Was my mother crying herself to sleep every night over me while my father sat up writing sad songs?

Or, was I officially erased from their memories just like they were going to be from mine? Had Emi finally made friends with Holly because I didn't exist? Had Tristan forgotten all about the heroine related role-plays we did at lunch when Emi was sick? Were my parents going to adopt?

I felt a bit sick, thinking about the second set of possibilities. My stomach churned and I forced the thought from my head.

Emi was probably doing exactly what I thought she was. It wouldn't surprise me one bit. She had been convinced of it when I was out of school for a week due to the flu, and if I had been gone for almost a year and a half... Had the authorities declared me dead?

I shook myself and laughed when I remembered how enthusiastic Emi was when I had come back to school after that week. She had glomped me right in the middle of the gym, in front of everybody. But I had just laughed and pried her off me so I could set my stuff down.

My smile fell again when I realized, for the first time fully, that I would never see her or Tristan again. I almost cried, but I was tired of crying, so I got out the Thievius Raccoonus from where I kept it, and scribbled down something that I would never regret.

_Don't Forget - April 17 and October 15, 7:20AM & 3:09PM respectively._

I couldn't help it, but I needed tk be able to remember.

_'Remember - I'll hold onto all the memories you care about.'_ Sophie remarked. She'd been excessively quiet the whole time.

"Thanks, Sophie. You're the greatest." I said.

I felt her happiness at that statement, along with some regret. I knew why, too. She had yanked me away from my - in comparison - easy life and into hers. My sense of duty and my sense of adventure had lured me away from everything I held dear. She felt responsible for my decision to stay even though I'd made it wilingly.

She was so self-depricating sometimes. It was actually kind of painful.

But I knew what my answer was, and I knew it wasn't her fault. I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that I had brought this forgetting upon myself. I had decided to stay so she could live the life she never got to have.

I laid on that hill until the sun was well into the sky, perfectly silent, perfectly still. I knew I wouldn't have chosen to go home, even if I had thought about the consequences beforehand.

"Sophie, I would've stayed even if you had continuously argued with me about it."

And with that, I got up and left the site of the old orphanage, making my way back to the hideout and deciding, right then and there, that I would somehow get my memories back.


	36. Epilogue: Remember To Forget

**A/N: *streamers suddenly fall from the ceiling, sparkles surround the author, and confetti rains from the sky***

**Sophie Cooper and Sophje Caldicot: *hugging* IT'S OVER!**

**Rudy: Wow, that was great!**

**Lindsey: Fantastic!**

**Rajan: Magnificent, even!**

***the author smiles at the praise and turns to the readers* Welp, here's the end. But don't be sad - I have an epilogue to give you!**_**  
**_

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_Epilogue: Remember To Forget_

_Poison crown of regret, why have you chosen to haunt such innocent lives? In the name of regret, many end things. But, too, some choose to ignore it and try to move on..._

_Sophie Caldicot is one of those people. Though her adventure was long and hard, she perservered. No matter the situation, she never gave up hope. And that is why she is still alive today._

_Hope spreads like wildfire once given. It will burn and burn until it is put out and smothered to the point of total extinguishment. Sophie has never let thst happen, though often her hope is rather trodden, it still blazes. She will neber give up, not so long as she upholds her previous tradition._

"Even if I forget everything, I'll always remember the feeling of love. A warm, soft hand caressing my face for a moment before abruptly disappearing."

_It will still hold true, no matter where she is, that she will always win against whatever forces she may be dealing with. Her courage is almost as impossible to best as her sheer hope. She will charge into any situation to save her friends._

"I'm not a hero. No matter what anybody thinks, I've never been one and I never will be."

_She claims she is not a hero, but her actions suggest otherwise. And maybe, these actions are simply being viewed incorrectly. What can be seen as heroism could quite as easily be selfishness. Such are the simple laws of human nature, of course._

_A butterfly flapped its wing, a rift opened, and a girl was tossed through eternity. She goes by the name of..._

"Sophie Cooper." A hawk said, nodding.

"Sophie Cooper." A rocker-type human girl clad in mostly black agreed, bobbing her brown-haired head.

_...Sophia Angelo Cooper._

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Credits... (There She Goes, Sixpence None The Richer version)

Sly Cooper games, characters, and settings…SuckerPunch/Sanzaru

Plot…The Voices In My Head

Sophie and all other characters…Emi and Myself, Allie Pierson

There She Goes…The La's/Sixpence None The Richer


End file.
